Dean Ashton ‘to make compensation claim for career-ending injury’

Posted 14/12/2009

Former Norwich City footballer Dean Ashton is considering making a compensation claim over the leg injury which forced him to retire at the age of 26.

The England striker is possibly looking to put forward a legal case against Shaun-Wright Phillips, the player whose tackle caused Ashton to break his ankle, an injury from which he claims to have never fully recovered.

Ashton sustained the injury during training for the national team in 2006 and went on to play fewer than 40 matches in the subsequent three years before his recent decision to quit the game.

He told the Sun that his long-term health may also have been compromised, saying: “It’s unlikely I will ever be able to jog again but right now, I can’t walk properly.”

Chelsea, Wright-Phillips’s employer at the time of the incident, may also be implicated in the legal claim, even though the player has since moved to Manchester City.

Rival club Arsenal this week revealed plans to make a compensation claim from the Dutch football federation, following a long-term injury sustained by their striker Robin Van Persie while he was playing for the Holland national team.