Mason Greenwood Charges Dropped

"All those involved, including Mason, recognise the difficulties with him recommencing his career at Manchester United. It has therefore been mutually agreed that it would be most appropriate for him to do so away from Old Trafford, and we will now work with Mason to achieve that outcome."

United didn't like the backlash. Looks like they will look to find him a club though.
 
The full statement is strange.

"Based on the evidence available to us, we have concluded that the material posted online did not provide a full picture and that Mason did not commit the offences in respect of which he was originally charged. That said, as Mason publicly acknowledges today, he has made mistakes which he is taking responsibility for."

We've found him innocent but have to let him go?
 
Mr C said:
caved in to the few.
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It was always going to be extremely difficult for Mason to return to the playing squad, and the thoughts of the women's team would have been a strong consideration in this outcome. Personally, I think this is the right decision. His off-field behaviour/character has potentially lost him a career playing at the highest level.
 
IDFD said:
The full statement is strange.

"Based on the evidence available to us, we have concluded that the material posted online did not provide a full picture and that Mason did not commit the offences in respect of which he was originally charged. That said, as Mason publicly acknowledges today, he has made mistakes which he is taking responsibility for."

We've found him innocent but have to let him go?
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This probably just placing on record that he was not actually found guilty of any charges.
 
they also said the excerpt placed on line deflected from the longer recording.

Basically he's innocent, but the brand is more important.

I imagine there are about 10m fas for Every Rachel Riley
 
It’s the right decision ultimately for all involved. I’m sure there were strong thoughts of bringing him back into the fold but the backlash would have been so strong, mainly aimed towards the player. The abuse would have been ongoing and relentless. The team or the player don’t need that.

We do have to protect the overall brand of the club as well, no player is bigger than the club. Bringing him back may have had long term repercussions as a whole.

I’m sad, not because we haven’t brought him back but because he was a huge talent in his early days here and no doubt he would be an integral part of our first team right now. It’s a huge waste but maybe he’ll rebuild his career somewhere abroad but I think any PL or England career is out of the question.

Least we get to keep Rachel Riley as a fan! Hooray!
 
It is not a few I'd say at best it's 50/50 between fans who want him back and fans who wanted him sacked. Without knowing more about those recordings and photos that were leaked I still remain very uncomfortable with the idea of him returning.

The issue I see is this idea that he's "made mistakes" but maintains his innocence on the charges. So what were those mistakes?

They were never going to be able to let him return without providing the additional information that puts what was leaked online into full context. That would likely require very private and potentially embarrassing information about him and his partner being put into public.
 
we've all said stupid stuff in our time I'm sure.

the bothersome element was the bruising.

Shame the club don't listen to the fans with such concern re: the Glazers
 
Not sure you can bring the owners into this that is a totally different situation.

Reading the statements does leaving by mutual agreement mean his contract is terminated or that Utd will agree to sell him to another club?
 
jsp said:
Not sure you can bring the owners into this that is a totally different situation.

Reading the statements does leaving by mutual agreement mean his contract is terminated or that Utd will agree to sell him to another club?
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It’s a little bit unclear in the statement isn’t it - it doesn’t sound like he’s been released but just that he won’t play for us. So probably looking for someone to buy him - doubt they will be looking for a loan deal.
 
I understand he's been released

I just reread it, you're right it is unclear. Mixed messaging if they ask for money though isn't it?
 
"It has therefore been mutually agreed that it would be most appropriate for him to do so away from Old Trafford, and we will now work with Mason to achieve that outcome."

That reads as the club will let him leaves.

If they'd agreed to "mutual termination" of his contract like they did with Ronaldo the club statement would say that.

They have clearly tried to limit any further damage to his reputation which to me makes me think they're going to sell him rather than just release him.
 
jsp said:
"It has therefore been mutually agreed that it would be most appropriate for him to do so away from Old Trafford, and we will now work with Mason to achieve that outcome."

That reads as the club will let him leaves.

If they'd agreed to "mutual termination" of his contract like they did with Ronaldo the club statement would say that.

They have clearly tried to limit any further damage to his reputation which to me makes me think they're going to sell him rather than just release him.
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It actually comes across like they want to loan him out for a season. There was no ruling out of him returning. Insurance that they found him innocent.. and another reassurance that they have a duty of care to him.

All they said negatively was that he won't continue here.
 
I see Neville was spouting his usual drivel last night about how United have handled the situation poorly. We were damned if we do and damned if we don’t. If we had taken the decision quickly, there would still be comments like oh that was quickly, we clearly did a hap hazard investigation. You can’t state we handled a situation poorly while not knowing the whole facts of the situation. Neville sounded like an idiot last night in my opinion.

We could have probably announced it before the season started to avoid the distraction. However I guess investigations can take time and we don’t know to what extent these investigations went.

No-one on Twitter, the media etc really know the whole story, so the amount of nonsense these pundits and keyboard warriors have been spouting since yesterday just makes you cringe.
 
I didn't hear what Neville said

but they have handled it badly, do not have the balls to do anything, which is them all over.

Its obvious they were going to keep him, Rachel Riley spouted off and they changed their mind. That's no way to run a business. If they did their due diligience, and decided to keep him, then keep him.

The fact he was tarnished and would damage the "name" was clear a year ago.

It's another sign of joke weak management, whoever comes in needs to clear everyone out and get proper management in.
 
I don’t think it was obvious at all that we were going to keep him, it was perhaps leaning that way after reading The Athletic piece but even then it was just an ‘option’. Like getting rid of him was an option.

We shouldn’t so be naive thinking Rachel Riley’s outspoken statement had anything to do with the decision but fan reaction was of course going to be considered. If we lose a percentage of shirt sales, or any kind of percentage of revenue streams because of the decision then that’s bad business.

I don’t think we have been weak in this scenario at all. If any other club had this situation then it would have been handled just as delicately. This seems to be just another reason to have a pop at our management. Also like I said above no-one knows the private ins and outs of the situation. We have heard what’s in the public domain but that’s just a fraction of the story I’m sure.
 
im my opinion, we spent months on, put out feelers about keeping him, got negative response so binned him.

That's no way to approach that situation. and is just this club all over at the moment. If you made the decision to keep him, then do that.

We need that sale so we can move on, hopefully under proper leasdership.

Their statement, everything in it, was known months and months ago
 
It was clear they wanted to keep him and this is just a response to the backlash. Last week they released a statement saying they wanted to wait for the women's team to return and talk to them. This week he's gone before they return.
 
It wasn't just Rachel Riley who spouted off. Female season ticket holders protested before the Wolves game and a couple of MP's spoke out against it. They massively failed to consider the reaction of the fans, there was nowhere near full support for his return in fact I've seen polls amongst match going fans suggesting 75% wanted him gone.

It was handled very poorly in the end they clearly decided to bring him back without fully understanding the backlash that was going to come from it which resulted in an embarrassing u-turn. This is the biggest club in the world him coming back was huge news on the front and back pages.

They obviously conducted this whole process with the intent on bringing him back, once the charges were dropped by the CPS. It feels to me like they wanted to bury the news in the start of the new season but doing it while England were still at the world cup hadn't been considered.

To bring him back they had to be willing to share the evidence that hasn't been made public about what happened to explain it without that how do you change your opinion on the whole thing?
 
IDFD said:
It was clear they wanted to keep him and this is just a response to the backlash. Last week they released a statement saying they wanted to wait for the women's team to return and talk to them. This week he's gone before they return.
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I think that was misreported by Jamie Jackson at the Guardian he suggested they were going to be consulted when actually they were going to be told the decision they wouldn't have any say in the matter.

They apparently wanted to make the announcement in person to all playing/support staff to the men and women teams at the same time then inform the fans/media/sponsors in writing of the decision followed by a pre recorded video message from Richard Arnold.
 
The point is, it doesn't matter who backlashed (btw any idiot should have know that there would be one) if they made the decision to keep him, after months of investigation, no need to put the feelers out, if that's your decision stick to it. It's weak management.

Like I said, the backlash was known months and months ago, they should have just let him go then as fundamentally that's their problem. They found him innocent, but still were worried about the backlash, so what was the point
 
IDFD said:
It was clear they wanted to keep him and this is just a response to the backlash. Last week they released a statement saying they wanted to wait for the women's team to return and talk to them. This week he's gone before they return.
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The Guardian were reporting that, we didn’t make any official statement to that effect.

The simple fact that if he returned it would make the club a toxic environment. The abuse would have been relentless and it would have been a massive distraction. We made the right call even if people think it’s a sign of weakness or the club handed it poorly.
 
I think anyone with half a brain could see what would happen if he was coming back without any explanation of what actually happened.

Strong leadership would have been sitting Greenwood down and saying to him that unless he's willing to go public with the additional information that apparently clears up this entire event there is no way they can bring him back into Man Utd.

That information may be embarrassing for him and/or his partner but sadly it was the only way for him to come back.
 
SuperRash said:
The simple fact that if he returned it would make the club a toxic environment. The abuse would have been relentless and it would have been a massive distraction
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the weak management is that this info was known since day 1
 
I half wonder if he's buried himself away and didn't realise the negative reaction was going to be so strong and Greenwood has shied away from a return at Old Trafford himself.

It takes a strong character to be at Old Trafford let alone having all that hanging over you. Gotta be easier to go and be somewhere else.

I fancy him to make the 2028 Euros squad though. All if it would have died down by then he'll be scoring a ton of goals somewhere and Kane will be gone.
 
yeah, maybe Greenwood said I don't want to do it, that would make more sense and would be the only explanation of the way the club have run this.
 
I certainly wouldn't rule out him being the one to back out realising the writing is on the wall but I still don't see how they weren't prepared for this response.

Be it a leak or official the moment word was out on his return it was going to become a huge story and it seems pretty clear Utd were not ready with a way to navigate through the criticism. They simply didn't have the necessary answers to the obvious question which is why has he been cleared to return?
 
IDFD said:
I half wonder if he's buried himself away and didn't realise the negative reaction was going to be so strong and Greenwood has shied away from a return at Old Trafford himself.

It takes a strong character to be at Old Trafford let alone having all that hanging over you. Gotta be easier to go and be somewhere else.

I fancy him to make the 2028 Euros squad though. All if it would have died down by then he'll be scoring a ton of goals somewhere and Kane will be gone.
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I wouldn’t be so sure there will ever be a route back to England. He has form as well after being dropped by them previously for sneaking Icelandic girls into his hotel room along with Foden.

Obviously things will die down and it will eventually be in the backs of peoples minds but it’s a long long way back. He has to find a club first and foremost.

Just because he’ll potentially move abroad doesn’t mean he won’t get abuse. Look at the protests about Mendy at Lorient.
 
Yeah I don't think there's a route back with him for England now.

If he develops into a world class striker wherever he ends up banging in 30+ a season maybe things do change for him but I think he'll struggle to do that.

He's missed some really key years in his development sitting out for 18 months away from full time coaching will have impacted his potential and when he got his ban he was still a long way from the finished article.

I do think more and more clubs are getting wise to bringing in these "problem" players, once these things go public they don't blow over in the way they maybe did a decade ago because of social media it will always be there with him.
 
Call for Richard Arnold to be sacked over this.

And I've got to say I agree, it's an absolute embarrassment.

Rumour knocking about that Qatar have won the bid, are doing due diligince and will be owners by middle of October. I think a clear out will be needed.

And there must a bit of pressure on ETH too. Because his signings are questionable and the team are not performing, they don't seem to have a system still. He narrowed the ptich too apparantly. Big season for him and it's started really badly.

But that's all for different threads.
 
Normally when an organisation is forced into a u-turn on a poor decision the Chief Exec gets the bullet but I don't see that happening at Utd.

Whoever the new owners are assuming they ever sell they'll bring in a new exec team none of this lot will last more than 12 months and Arnold will be gone.

I actually think the statements from the club were done in a way to leave the door slightly open for the player to return at a later date if he ends up going on loan and they can find a way out of it.

What all those statements did was fail to bring closure to the situation.
 
Mr C said:
Call for Richard Arnold to be sacked over this.

And I've got to say I agree, it's an absolute embarrassment.

Rumour knocking about that Qatar have won the bid, are doing due diligince and will be owners by middle of October. I think a clear out will be needed.

And there must a bit of pressure on ETH too. Because his signings are questionable and the team are not performing, they don't seem to have a system still. He narrowed the ptich too apparantly. Big season for him and it's started really badly.

But that's all for different threads.
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Interested to hear why you think it was an absolute embarrassment? You don’t think six months is a correct period of time to do an internal investigation of this sensitive nature?

There was financial, legal, social ramifications to the situation. Plus it had to be sensitive to the victim in the case. No-one knows the ins and outs of the situation and no-one probably ever will.

I think it’s naive to think that we suddenly did this u-turn on the back of a journalist piece. If only all journalists were solid and 100% correct on everything they write!

Not saying Arnold didn’t make mistakes and he probably did through the process but the vitriol aimed to him is a little much, especially in this very difficult situation.
 

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