http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_conf/8711856.stm

See the comments here from Ashton United’s secretary:

As Secretary of Ashton United, can I just clear a few points up? Re public liability insurance, the match was not played at our ground and does not cover this incident. In any case, public liability for football clubs excludes player to player incidents of this nature. The cost of insurance to cover player to player incidents is not affordable for clubs at our level of the pyramid. The UniBond League, of which we are currently members, has been trying, without success, to source such cover for all member clubs. Our players do have personal accident insurance, which pays them a small weekly amount, should they be injured playing football and be unable to carry out their job. Players can take out personal injury insurance, but few at this level do so.

As a non-league player he would have a main income other than football so this did not end his main career (sales by the look of it) and it now appears his greed for a measley £32k (just over a year’s ‘average’ salary in the UK) is going to cost the loss of another of the nations football clubs. His club obviously feels the same as me (i.e. greedy money grabbing bastard) as I see they refused to back the claim.

There’s an easy solution, either sign a disclaimer set up by the leagues saying you will not sue a player or a club for an injury incurred during normal play or arrange your own insurance. I bet 99% of players would sign this because they just want to play the game. In the circumstance a tackle is well beyond ‘normal play’ then it would be assault, a criminal charge, same as if I kicked someone on the street, and the law courts would decide the outcome and a suitable payout would come from the victims of crime fund. People getting charged with assault for violent behaviour on the pitch is not unknown, even in the professional game.

This ‘sue me’ culture, so common in the US, is no good for our country. The only winners are the ‘ambulance chasers’, the parasites feeding off a currently impoverished society who simply can’t pay. Notice how the legal fees are actually over three times the actual payout? Our club, Ipswich Wanderers, playing at Step 6 level (2-3 levels below the Unibond league) dream of achieving a £25k annual operating budget. Many clubs are in the same precarious position. If this becomes commonplace clubs will drop like flies and the only winners will be the parasitic lawyers circling like vultures overhead.