[Archived] Sheff Utd Win Tribunal

[Hughesy]

Oh dear - could West Ham be up the creek?

Utd win tribunal

Rumours of a £50m compensation payout! Ha ha!

[Cocker]

Rumours of a £50m compensation payout! Ha ha!

I bet they would swap that for a place in the premier league. I hope West Ham do get strung up for it. It was Tevez being there that pretty much kept them afloat so good luck to Sheff Utd for carrying on with it.

[Manc Rover]

Oh dear - could West Ham be up the creek?

Utd win tribunal

Rumours of a £50m compensation payout! Ha ha!

That's 3 weeks wages for Lucash Neill

[CrazyIvan]

Good luck to them, they deserve more than the £30 million I heard on the radio. How much did Spam earn last season?

[Manc Rover]

Oh dear - could West Ham be up the creek?

Utd win tribunal

Rumours of a £50m compensation payout! Ha ha!

Reading between the lines with this, it could explain why they've been heavily reducing their wage bill in anticipation of this verdict.

[thenodrog]

Good luck to them, they deserve more than the £30 million I heard on the radio. How much did Spam earn last season?

Presumably with interest!

Maybe a bit selfish but I hope it will see WHU fold....... we'd get the match result wiped off!

[CrazyIvan]

Presumably with interest!

Maybe a bit selfish but I hope it will see WHU fold....... we'd get the match result wiped off!

I have to say it was one of those things that annoyed me the most and highlighted the utter incompetence of the FA to deal with the situation as it should have been. West Ham should have been deducted 10 points (arbitrary but what clubs are deducted for going into administration) and heavily fined plus not allowed to play Tevez. They got away with murder and I still wonder why. How many phone calls went on in the background to stop what should have been due process? The cynic in me says this is a clue to the level of corruption in English football...

[Billy Castell]

Crazy Ivan, I have two words: Trevor Brooking.

The Whammers did get away with murder. I'd have given them a big fine, and wiped all Tevez's goals from the records. That probably would relegate them.

[OscarRaven]

This is damming indictment on the Premier League and FA. I still can not believe no-one has been held accountable. However the biggest disappointment for me was the shameful silence of the majority of Premier League chairmen (our own included).

I have no faith in the Premier League to act fairly and without bias. Football is merely circus run by pantomime characters, about as honest as wrestling these days, with very similar marketing strategies.

West ham wouldn’t have entered arbitration without agreeing the liability up front if ruled against. I seriously doubt it will be £30M let alone £50M.

[CrazyIvan]

Crazy Ivan, I have two words: Trevor Brooking.

The Whammers did get away with murder. I'd have given them a big fine, and wiped all Tevez's goals from the records. That probably would relegate them.

I didn't want to name the guy but I suspect you are right along with a number of high profile football fan journos...

[percy]

In effect, Scudamore allowed West Ham to continue to play Tevez and Mascherano illegally, albeit the latter had little effect on the club's results in the relegation battle. Still, at least he looked out for the West Ham fans and the new owners of the club, not that those involved with Sheff Utd mattered as much.

Fair play to Dave Whelan and a few other chairmen who tried to rally support for Sheff Utd and highlight the blindingly obvious corruption that was at hand. You have to wonder what impact there might have been if the Big 4 had decided to get as involved, but I guess that wouldn't have suited Liverpool and Man Utd at the time, given their interests in the players mentioned.

The fine at the time was £5.5m. I hope Sheff Utd screw them over this time to the effect that it seriously cripples West Ham's chances of staying up this season, but we know it won't happen. A bit of shush money handed over in the meantime (nothing like the sum that would reasonably compensate Sheff Utd's relegation) and a case of 'nothing else here to see, move along please' is alot more likely.

The world's 'biggest / greatest' league openly displayed rule breaking and bending and we're all supposed to accept it. Pathetic. We laugh when the Italians do it and look down on their match fixing, etc, but at least they had a go at punishing the teams found guilty, regardless of size and profile. I couldn't really care much for Sheff Utd, but i guess it shows where we'd stand if it affected us in the future.

[Billy Castell]

SSN have been anti-Sheffield with some journalist saying it is a disgrace that Wham have been punished again, Sheff. Utd have been trying to push it until they get the 'right' result, Tevez had little effect because its a team game, what if someone else scored the goals, the Premership is not to blame, other teams will challenge relegation in the courts and so on.

What tosh.

[Esulx]

Tevez was instrumental in West Ham's win at Rovers on 17th March 2007, having gained the 'dodgy' penalty against Emo, despatching it past Friedel and then controversially stopping Zamora's shot on the line whilst in an offside position but still having the "goal" allowed.

[Neil Weaver]

Heard Neil Warnock on the radio this afternoon talking about this. Despite not having a lot of time for the bloke, found it hard to disagree with most of what he said - a few words here

[T4E]

Heard Neil Warnock on the radio this afternoon talking about this. Despite not having a lot of time for the bloke

That's people called Neil for you. Tossers.

[philipl]

This ruling by the arbitration panel (comprising a person appointed by each side and a neutral chairman) has been like waiting for a car crash involving a driver who ignores red lights.

The Premier League is a private members club who organise a football competition between themselves according to the national and international rules which are themselves in effect organised as very large private members' clubs.

As such, Premier League clubs have rights and duties towards the "club" they belong to ie the Premier League, and towards each other. From the moment the first appeal judgement ruled that the Premier League punishment was inapproriate/inadequate but not capable of being changed under football rules, the case was effectively shunted out of being a Premier League matter and to a private matter between West Ham and Sheffield United but with a string of judgements strongly favouring Sheff U except awarding them any benefit or compensation-

West Ham did lie, West Ham did play ineligible players, the ripping-up of the Tevez contract to enable him to play was a West Ham decision entirely at West Ham's own risk and the first Tribunal ruling favoured West Ham to such an extent that the subsequent Appeal judgement had to seriously consider over-turning the punishment and spend several pages explaining why marginally on balance it could not, effectively dismissing the fine as an adequate punishment in the course of that justification.

In protecting its own hide from the Sheff U onslaught, the Premier League management shunted the case as firmly as it could into a head-to-head of one of its members (West Ham) acting recklessly, irresponsibly and disadvantagiously towards another (Sheff U). The subsequent contortions over the Tevez transfer to Man U simply heaped up even more evidence favouring Sheffield United's case that West Ham had bent the rules to such an extent they had caused Sheffield United direct and very real losses.

The desire of football to keep things "within football" has now in every likelihood cost West Ham many millions. The obvious thing to do would have been to let Sheff U and West Ham slug out a damages case in the High Court- in all probability Sheff U would have been awarded costs and after a massive haggle perhaps won £10m to £14m in damages.

By going to a binding private arbitration within the rules of football, West Ham have suffered the inevitable pivot decision- they were in the wrong- and are now at very real risk of Sheff U getting most of the £30m. West Ham's only hope is that McCabe has broken the rules of the arbitartion by going public about the outcome but I doubt that will be the case. The arbitration panel had itself been indicating for days that its ruling was imminent and Sheff U went public a few days after the ruling when it was extremely obvious that West Ham were looking for any way they could to get off the hook.

West Ham are on the hook because their own appointee is one of the three signatories to the panel's arbitration decision and they signed up to the binding nature of the outcome when they agreed to arbitration.

The only surprising thing in all this is the number of seemingly genuinely angry Hammers fans in the newspaper blogs today. West Ham are in the Prem, Sheff U are not and for that the Hammers fans should thank their Gods, their lucky stars and Sir TB. And shut up.

[CrazyIvan]

In real terms West Ham are still much better off than if they'd received the correct punishment for their actions at the time. Whatever the arbitration panel comes up with as a payment is not going to be anything like the cost of relegation. Dropped revenue from TV rights, payments from the Premier League, loss of players who don't want to drop a division, the possiblility of staying in the Championship for more than one season and the difference between the leagues payments etc. etc. In this, while the arbitration panel may well give Sheffield United a nice payment, they can't compensate them properly and reinstate them into the league. West Ham have been looked after and will continue to benefit as long as they remain where they are.

Here's a question for you. What if the panel decided (theoretically saying they have the power etc) to dock West Ham 10 points, what would you think about that?

[den]

Can't see the compo reaching the £30m figure though. Wont it be based on how much Tevez actually contributed to Sheff U's relegation? That would be difficult to evaluate, because of the many contributory circumstances.

[philipl]

Can't see the compo reaching the £30m figure though. Wont it be based on how much Tevez actually contributed to Sheff U's relegation? That would be difficult to evaluate, because of the many contributory circumstances.

I don't think it works that way.

West Ham elected to play Tevez knowing the situation was not regular. They stayed up by 2 points I think- less than just one win and the Panel ruled that playing Tevez directly contributed so much that he unarguably made difference between West Ham staying up and going down. So West Ham are responsible for Sheffield United's losses irrespective of all other possible contributory factors.

Looking back on that season, would any football person even begin to argue that had West Ham not played Tevez AFTER the April Premier League fine was imposed, they would have stayed up? NOBODY would say that.

The fine was imposed for the irregularities before the ruling was made. West Ham were then told to regularise the situation and of the three possibilities they opted for the legally most risky and ripped up the contract. Joorbachian said he still held the contract (and has a deal worth £38m from Man U which the Prem OK'd to show for it) and the Prem told West Ham that what they were doing at their own risk and effectively abdicated responsibility.

Their own risk has now turned into an Arbitration Panel on which West Ham had one third representation ruling that continuing playing Tevez was both irregular and the decisive factor in deciding between West Ham and Sheff U staying up and going down. So West Ham now have to compensate Sheff U for their losses.

Incidentally, if Sheff U not lost to Wigan, the case would be identical except Wigan would be the plaintive against West Ham so those arguments by Hammers fans that Sheff U brought it on themselves by losing at home to the pie-eaters are rubbish.

[T4E]

Right - so how much per place is the Premiership worth? £500k ish? Would we have finished higher if it hadn't been for the West Ham/Jim Devine robbery? I hope we're looking in to this.

[Billy Castell]

Interesting to see whether Zola is pressured into making more sales in Janurary in order to pay of the Blades. If only we could sue for the Jim Devine mess, as reviously stated.

[only2garners]

The only surprising thing in all this is the number of seemingly genuinely angry Hammers fans in the newspaper blogs today. West Ham are in the Prem, Sheff U are not and for that the Hammers fans should thank their Gods, their lucky stars and Sir TB. And shut up.

There is indeed an extraordinary amount of rubbish being written and broadcast by West Ham fans today. They seem to think that because they have been fined once (£5.5m) that this should be an end to it. They all seem to be blaming Sheffield United, who have been proved to be the innocent party and have yet to get a penny in compensation, for cruelly pursuing them - you really couldn't make it up.

Now I hear on Five Live that West Ham are to have talks about taking over the main stadium after the Olympics. No doubt any deal will be cleverly wrapped up but it is difficult to see how they will not effectively be subsidised by us as taxpayers to get a nice big new ground.

[CrazyIvan]

Now I hear on Five Live that West Ham are to have talks about taking over the main stadium after the Olympics. No doubt any deal will be cleverly wrapped up but it is difficult to see how they will not effectively be subsidised by us as taxpayers to get a nice big new ground.

That's effectively what Man City did. They rent the ground and I expect West Ham would do the same. Can't see anything wrong in it to be honest apart from them getting a shiny new massive stadium... What happens when that stadium is old and decrepit though? Not owning it has it's benefits but also it's downsides...

[ThatRabbitsDynamite]

Tevez was instrumental in West Ham's win at Rovers on 17th March 2007, having gained the 'dodgy' penalty against Emo, despatching it past Friedel and then controversially stopping Zamora's shot on the line whilst in an offside position but still having the "goal" allowed.

I believe this goal had 3 violations. Was it 2 offsides and 1 handball or vice versa? It certainly was one of those things that makes you scratch your head. It was also very near the end of the season when W.Ham were hanging over the fire and getting closer.

[philipl]

I believe this goal had 3 violations. Was it 2 offsides and 1 handball or vice versa? It certainly was one of those things that makes you scratch your head. It was also very near the end of the season when W.Ham were hanging over the fire and getting closer.

Plus the mildly contentious issue of the ball never crossing the line. I recall none of the ball got to the level of the line, never mind all of it being across the line.