Sunderland claim Butler resigned

Sunderland have finally broken their silence over the departure last season of Irish international winger Thomas Butler.

Butler officially left the Black Cats in September and is currently playing for Dunfermline, but has now submitted a claim to an employment tribunal.

Club officials say they are “surprised and disappointed” by the claim as they feel they handled his situation with “extreme sensitivity and confidentiality”.

A club statement read: “During the early part of this year Thomas Butler, entirely of his own volition, resigned from the club and made it clear to the manager that he no longer wanted to play football for Sunderland.

“In a meeting with Mick McCarthy in January 2004, Thomas Butler informed him that he no longer enjoyed playing competitive football and hadn’t for some time.

“He indicated to the club that, having reflected on this for many months, he did not enjoy the life of a footballer and no longer wanted to continue as a player and in particular that he no longer wished to play football for Sunderland.

“Of even greater concern to the club, during discussions he admitted that he could not raise any enthusiasm for playing in competitive matches and had not been able to for some time, and appeared unconcerned about the results of matches he was involved in.”

Butler was given permission to visit his family to consider his position and confirmed his decision to resign when manager Mick McCarthy and vice-chairman John Fickling flew to Ireland to meet him.

“Thomas repeated this again in a further conversation with another club official a short time later,” the statement continued.

“Although he had resigned, the club still retained his registration and compensation rights, which it has since voluntarily agreed to forego.

“Having made these statements confirming his resignation and the club having accepted his resignation, the player’s advisors subsequently attempted to retract his resignation, and asked the club to allow him to return as a Sunderland player.

“Having re-considered the circumstances carefully and after taking professional advice, the club advised both parties that it would not reinstate the player.”

Butler recently claimed to have another version of the events which saw him eventually join Dunfermline.

He said earlier this month: “Unfortunately I had problems and returned to Ireland to see a specialist about an injury. The club weren’t happy and it all blew up – they said I’d breached my contract but I wasn’t aware of it. Neither were my agent or lawyers.

“It was a bad way for something to end. I enjoyed my time at Sunderland and the final outcome has nothing to do with Mick McCarthy.

“But I couldn’t sit around and sulk. I waited a long time to get my registration back from the club and spent a couple of months training on my own which was tough.

“Finally the papers came through and Dunfermline were interested. I had no hesitation about coming here. I’m dying to get back to playing. This is like a new start.”

However Fickling today added: “We all feel extremely disappointed with the situation, which is very unusual in football terms.

“We regret having to make the details of Thomas’ resignation and disclosures public, particularly as we have stayed silent about the circumstances of his departure in an effort to protect the player’s future interests.

“The club has acted with integrity during the process. The club did not coerce the player to say he did not want to play for Sunderland or that he had no enthusiasm for playing football games, nor did we solicit his resignation.

“However, having made the statements and taking these actions the club has the right to act on them and ultimately chose to do so by accepting his resignation.”