Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd has announced that they will be compensated from the English Football Association for striker Michael Owen's injury. "The FA insures England players when they are on international duty should compensation issues arise and that applies in Michael's case," Shepherd was quoted as saying by BBC on Wednesday. Owen was ruled out from the World Cup for five months after sustaining a knee ligament injury in their draw with Sweden after the player fell awkwardly in the first minute of the match. "We have an insurance policy in place for all players that covers their salaries while they are injured," FA spokesman Adrian Bevington insisted. Shepherd insisted that the level of compensation must be according to how serious an injury is and stressed that in Owen's case, the FA should pay a substantial amount of money to reimburse them for their £17 million signing. "If you lend tools to someone and they come back broken you shouldn't have to pay for the repair and that is what happened to Newcastle." "The FA have a level of compensation and we insured Michael above that but compensation isn't high enough in my opinion," Shepherd said. Owen has only featured in 10 matches for Newcastle ever since moving from Real Madrid for $30 million last summer. "I nearly vomited when it happened. You can imagine, we've just got him fit for England, he's played very well for Newcastle this year, he plays two games for England, and he is substituted." "And now he's sent back to Newcastle for us to more or less pick up the pieces. So we don't think any manager, or chairman, or supporter, is going to be very happy with that," Shepherd insisted.
