To nobody's great surprise, former boss Alan Curbishley has won the court battle for unfair dismissal against his old club and can look forward to significant compensation from the Premier League manager's tribunal as a result. Whatever the rights and wrongs of Curbishley's resignation, it can be pretty much guessed that if there is any chance of the Hammers having to fork out money somewhere, then someone from the Upton Park offices is going to be seen running down to the bank with a cheque book before the month is out.

The ruling that decided that Curbishley had been forced to resign when certain clauses in his contract were not upheld, is yet another financial blow for the Hammers. Curbishley was quoted after saying: "The club completely ignored my contract when selling Anton Ferdinand, and when George McCartney was then sold, the club having given me assurances that no players would be leaving the club after the sale of Anton Ferdinand, I had no alternative but to resign."

"My authority and integrity were undermined and my position was made untenable.''

There is a raging debate taking place on the various West Ham internet forums about this, with many people seeing Curbishley effectively taking money from the club he claims to love, while others see it as just compensation for a man who was given little choice but to resign after being treated with disdain by the board.

Personally, I veer towards the latter argument and even though I was no fan of Curbishley or his brand of football, as someone who works under contract - when I actually work that is! - I realise the value of the words and the promises therein and I simply can't understand how the club have managed to put themselves in this predicament.

While a manager must have a good deal of control over who he buys and sells, it seems ridiculous that one man can be given overall custody of what is virtually the largest part of a club's finances barring the ground i.e. the playing staff. On a normal level of sale and purchase, I'd expect the manager to have a more than reasonable level of input but, supposing Curbishley had wanted to buy Kaka for £50m? According to his contract it seems that the board could say 'No' but if AC had then decided his decision was being undermined then he could have claimed just as successfully for unfair dismissal. This is patently nonsense. If West Ham can't construct their contracts better than this then things are even worse than I'd imagined (And I've got a good imagination!)

What is particular galling about this is that, even though I wrote a scathing piece after the sale of Ferdinand and McCartney, it seems that the departure of McCartney could probably not have been prevented anyway as it has been since revealed that George left for Sunderland because his wife wanted to return to the North-east and he had expressed this wish to the club. In short, Curbishley would have had to have let the defender move anyway. It might have sounded better had he left after the sale of Ferdinand - a decision I still think was short-sighted and counter-productive.

This though does pose other questions; was Curbishley told that McCartney wanted to go and, if not, why not? Who eventually took the decision to sell on transfer deadline day? - especially as it left West Ham without a left back, a situation only resolved by the free transfer loan of Ilunga just after. As ever, with West Ham there are more questions than answers.

Also, not unreasonably, the counter-claim which the club launched relating to the cost of employing Curbishley's replacement Gianfranco Zola and his assistant Steve Clarke was thrown out. As I understand it, this claim was to seek redress from Curbishley for him resigning which seems a little like urinating on someone's doorstep and then knocking to ask them to clean up the mess. Whatever the legal niceties, this has been an unedifying spectacle and has done little to add to the seriously damaged reputation of the the Upton Park regime.

As for Alan Curbishley, he may want to remember that there is a recession on and some of us could do with a fraction of what he has won for losing his integrity. In fact, if someone wants to doubt my integrity please email me...