Rory McIlroy due in court over ‘nasty’ rift with former agents

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/feb/02/rory-mcilroy-court-case-former-agents

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Only an 11th-hour settlement, of which there was no sign on Monday, will prevent Rory McIlroy’s appearance in a Dublin courtroom on Tuesday morning when the multimillion-pound case with his former management company begins.

McIlroy is being sued and is counter-suing the Horizon management firm plus two of its subsidiaries after an acrimonious split in 2013. Six weeks have been set aside for the case at the commercial division of Dublin’s high court and McIlroy flew to Ireland from Dubai on Monday.

Barring a deal being struck McIlroy will be in court but it is likely to be Thursday at the earliest before the world No1 takes to the witness box. Sources close to the player have confirmed he will put all his energy into the case and is not expecting to play much, if any, golf before heading to the United States for the Honda Classic in late February.

The first major of the season, the Masters, is nine weeks away and McIlroy is the overwhelming favourite to triumph at Augusta.

The alternative scenario, which would spare McIlroy a public showdown with Horizon, is common in cases such as these. Yet there has been no sign of an out-of-court settlement being close. McIlroy’s party is understood to have regarded as wildly excessive a figure quoted as being necessary to avert the full case being heard.

A judge, Brian McGovern, had insisted McIlroy and Horizon try to resolve their issues away from court owing to the highly sensitive nature of financial information that will otherwise be placed in the public domain. That mediation process failed after two days of talks in October.

McIlroy has been firm that he “did nothing wrong” on leaving Horizon after which he set up his own management group, Rory McIlroy Inc. McIlroy alleges his interests were not best served during his Horizon spell because of “unreasonable” commission rates and that he had an “unconscionable contract”. He had moved to Horizon from Chubby Chandler’s International Sports Management stable in 2011.

Still, the fact the 25-year-old had a contract with Horizon, which negotiated his $100m equipment contract with Nike, due to run until 2017 means it is inevitable he will pay out a significant sum. Quite how much, and on what terms, are the issues. Reputation as well as cash is at stake.

Horizon failed with a courtroom attempt to have data recovered from the mobile phones of McIlroy and others who now work for his company. Horizon’s director and key figure, Conor Ridge, stated in his affidavit to the high court that his evidence “will detail the carefully constructed commercial structure and the highly strategic Rory McIlroy brand development platform which the defendants put in place for the long-term benefit of the plaintiff”.

Ridge’s statement added that Horizon’s work “played a significant role in the securing of his [McIlroy’s] portfolio of lucrative sponsorship agreements, the activation of which now forms the bedrock of his global brand value and marketability as an athlete”.

Quite remarkably the background distractions associated with what he labelled a “nasty” and “tedious” process do not appear to have impacted on McIlroy’s professional life.

He claimed his first tournament victory of the year at the Dubai Desert Classic on Sunday, winning by three shots. In 2014 McIlroy won two major championships, the Open and PGA, in reasserting his position as the best player in the world.