Promissary estopel. You can be held liable without a formal contract for damages/or enforcement of the promise if the promisor (MLS) acts in a way (gives assurances) whereby MLS would reasonably expect to induce an action or forebearance on the part of the promisse (WBA) which WBA does in fact induce the action or forbearance. That is a very basic expanation, the ins and outs are far more complicated. That e-mail however doesn't appear on its face to be MLS telling WBA to do anything nor does it seem like they are telling WBA to go ahead with anything as it pertains to the contract/agreement they were working on. I would assume maybe MLS had some verbal exchanges where WBA was under the impression only some routine formalities needed to be completed as would be the normal course of arranging friendlies. Proving that is another matter.
“We strongly believe we had a firm commitment from LA Galaxy, who on June 8 confirmed by email that they had finalised their local arrangements to take West Bromwich Albion to their area and said they were ‘working diligently to complete the requisite contract’. That's a Peace quote from the Sun article. Note - they finalized arrangements by e-mail and were working dilligently to complete the contract. Nothing says they completed or that WBA signed anything. Albion took a leap of faith and ended up like the Roadrunner going off a cliff. Agreed with others, if WBA wanted games in America that badly, they could have found them.
WBA didn't necessarily need to cancel their tour. And presumably, a club like that gets refundable tickets. It's hard enough to recover outside of a contract-- more so when you have other options besides writing off those expenses as a loss...
What is WBA's problem? There are 9 other MLS clubs not involved in international friendlies that they could play. Why not NE Revolution? Also, as was mentioned before the game was never announced here and tickets never went on sale.
Just waiting to see how the San Jose fans can spin this as further proof that the league is biased against them. "How come we never get to snub EPL teams"...
The Fulham chick looks like she peeing on the soccer ball. That is downright uncalled for, and another English slight to our American boys McBride and Bocanegra...
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/headlinenews?id=336415&cc=5901 Another Link. This is horrible for MLS + LA Galaxy. West Brom will never come back. Any other Premiership sides will take notice of this. This could have been a step to getting bigger sides to come here regularly.......
You mean like Chelsea, Milan and Real Madrid for starters? Yeah, we'll never be able to get them to come over here now.
What's to prevent any of the bottom 15 from the Premiership coming to play at RSL, DAL, COL, CLB, KC? Nothing. Well, perhaps schedule congestion I would guess, since MLS clubs can't be playing 15 sides on vacation all summer. One bad experience where WBA was not preferred to Madrid should not ruin everything. Now if Fulham says they're not coming to the All-Star game because of the run around given to WBA, then that would be something.
As a LA Galaxy fan, I am embarrassed for the team. They should have made other rearrangements. Why not switch the dates between Chivas USA? Chivas could've played WBA first in LA and then the Galaxy could've played WBA on the 26th in SB. Or they could've asked San Jose to sub. That really sucks! Apologies to the WBA fans!