May 30 2006

Iain Dowie

Palace have issued a writ against former boss Iain Dowie in dramatic style.

The legal papers for the writ were issued by Jordan's lawyers during the press conference at Charlton's unveiling of Dowie as their new head coach.

Dowie left Palace last week claiming that he wanted to be nearer his family who live in the North East.

We served the writ on Iain because he does not tell the truth," Jordan told Sky Sports News from his holiday home in Marbella. "He fraudulently obtained a release from his contract under misrepresentation.

"For me to be able to serve a writ, I have to have had knowledge of what Iain was doing.

"I think it needs to be put in the public domain the level of deceit which has been used. My football club waived compensation because the man said he wanted to go back to the North.

"He specifically told me on the Friday before the Palace press conference that he would not be going to Charlton because of his relationship with Palace and the credibility he would lose by doing so.

"I released him from a £1 million compensation clause for him to do the very thing he said he was not going to do. There is a law in this country called misrepresentation and Iain has breached it and now he is going to understand the reality of what that means."

Jordan's representative burst into the press conference to unveil Dowie as Charlton's new manager and the Palace supremo was unrepentant over the course of events.

"If they had been a little politer at Charlton and let him in and not been so heavy handed, he might have been able to serve it in an orderly fashion," said Jordan. "But being Charlton and me being a big fan of them apparently, they did things in a certain way.

"For the last two-and-a-half years the media has had an inside track on our relationship and it had been reported as fractious. Now with due respect, if you are lied to and somebody is trying to leg you over by getting out of a contract to their own advantage and tells you bear-faced lies, and turns up at the very place he said he wasn't going to go, are you going to be worried about good feeling between yourselves?

"The reality of it is, is that Iain Dowie had a £1 million compensation clause in his contract. I insisted on it, I negotiated it with Mick McGuire. It took weeks to get it in because he did not want it put in, so there is no reason in God's green earth why I would have taken it out besides goodwill because Iain wanted to raise his family and because I am empathetic to the fact he was telling me he didn't see his kids and I will prove that.

"The reality of it is he attained a release from his contract by misrepresenting his position. The sole reason Iain Dowie was released from his contract was because he told me he wanted to go to the North. In return for that, ie. being an empathetic employer and understanding Iain, despite people's perception of me, I believed that he was going back to the North to be with his family.

"That was the only reason why I would waive the compensation clause in his contract and well he knows it."

Jordan is convinced he has a cast-iron case, as he added: "I would not issue a writ through my lawyers on a point of principle. I will issue a writ on a point of law because points of principle are expensive as Iain will find out."

Dowie insisted he had not held discussions with Charlton before leaving Palace.

"The first conversation I had with Charlton was two days after," said the former Northern Ireland international.

"If that is what he (Jordan) feels then that is what he feels but it totally misrepresents the conversation I had with Simon.

"I'm not going to let it sour a good day for me."