The Sheffield United – Premier League arbitration report and West Ham’s impossible position
For those of you unfamiliar with the exact events that took place after the 27 April West Ham hearing and the subsequent response by the FA Premier League in the following 2 weeks, this will surprise you.
Before we start though, you might want to scroll to the bottom and download the attached document so that you can follow the chain of events.
1. West Ham serve notice of termination, all parties refuse to agree
West Ham serve a notice of termination of contract to both MSI and JSI as well as Carlos Tevez. Both owning parties refuse to agree to the termination, and so does Carlos Tevez (who refuses to even acknowledge the receipt of such a notice).
Exact reply of the solicitor for MSI and JSI:
“I acknowledge receipt of your email and the purported ‘notice of termination’ . I shall take my clients’ instructions, in the meantime all my clients’ rights remain fully and expressly reserved.”
In English, that means that the termination was NOT agreed to by the third parties.
See points 46 to 49 of the attached document.
2. Premier League accepts the situation
The FA Premier League instruct West Ham that they have satisfied the requirements of the Board and that Tevez is free to play, however the Board may review the situation pending new developments and/or if the termination is challenged.
This was a decision taken on the night of 27th April by Mr Foster and Mr Scudamore, without recourse to legal counsel.
See #50.
3. When challenged, Premier League asks West Ham to defend their stance fully
On 4th May Sheffield United, Charlton, Fulham and Wigan Athletic challenge the FAPL’s decision and ask for proof of termination. In response FAPL take legal counsel and in essence, tell West Ham that the current arrangement may suggest that the FAPL had allowed the third-party agreements to stay in place and as a result instruct West Ham to do the following:
- Copy FAPL in all correspondence so that the FAPL can be in a position to monitor the situation fully.
- While West Ham may be sued as a result, they must maintain the position that the contracts were terminated and that they must act accordingly.
- If sued, West Ham must defend themselves fully and not settle or resolve the matter by accepting the validity of the contracts.
- If West Ham does not agree to this, FAPL would reconsider the validity of Tevez’s registration.
See #51to 53.
These points are taken from the Arbitration Award document in the case of Sheffield United and FA Premier League, which can be downloaded here (right-click, save as – 800kb+) (credit to SL reader and forum member Tauren for pointing me to this doc, originally found on the FAPL website).
The whole document makes for interesting but dense reading, and the most interesting factoid of them all is that while the Arbitration Panel considers that the Disciplinary Commission was wrong in not deducting points from West Ham, it was still with the remit of their powers and therefore a legal decision.
Looking through the events stated above, all I can say without bias creeping in is that yes, the Premier League and West Ham attempted to make the best out of an extraordinary set of circumstances, but that the Premier League made the very serious mistake of not taking legal counsel before accepting the current status on 27th April as told to them by West Ham.
A lot has already been said over this, so I won’t rehash but I have to say that the situation is one that the Premier League has progressively worsened by not taking immediate and proactive measures to fix the situation. Sure, hindsight is 20/20, and no one could expect West Ham to win their last 3 games and avoid relegation.
But if the FAPL was acting under the expectation that Sheffield United would stay up and the matter would blow over then that stance is the organisational equivalent of sticking your head up your ass, sniffing around and calling it a beautiful spring morning.
Bullshit is bullshit, and not only have the FAPL been criminally lazy, they have also pushed forward a lot of bullshit in defense of their actions.
Attached file (.pdf): Arbitration Award – Sheffield United vs Premier League (3rd July 2007)
Ahmed,
Your site says: ‘Football News You Can Trust’
Give the full picture, publish all the related documents not just the ones that satisfy your prejudices and ‘blind’ opinion (i.e., opinion without rationality or reason).
It really does seem that rather than acting to provoke some sort of debate that is going to result in football being a more decent sport for ALL fans to follow you are out to provoke WH fans.
I don’t know who you support and don’t really care. ALL Premiership teams have been implicated in some form of rule bending. The worst offenders are the richest and most powerful. But you’re not interested in that, you are only interested in ‘proving’ WH are corrupt which ends up being ‘my corruption is better than your corruption’. Good luck mate, may you and your 5 friends prosper in your prejudices.
I’m not defending you anymore. You deserve the abuse …
Yawn!!
Is it such a slow news day that we have to go over this yet again for the zillionth time.
Time to move on.
I agree this is just going on for too long and it’s gotten to the stage that I couldn’t care less about West Ham or anyone as long as the transfer is completed. I am bored with the whole subject of Tevez.
P.S. what is the popularity thing on the posts
Please forward this to the Premier League and try to get them to answer without using an automated response.
Reading all this – and I did! – I cannot get away from the fact that Sheffield United had an appaling end to the season and only finished on 38 points – pretty well acknowledged by all as insufficient to stay up. They couldn’t even draw their last vital game at home! Why do they even mention in their legal case that they had a better goal difference than West Ham? That’s like a boxer who has just woken from being knocked out saying he should have won because he had hit his opponent more times! And does it actually add anything to the case? If I was a Sheffield fan I’d be far more concerned about how they are going to get themselves back up again. Time to move on I think.
The clauses in the contract of Tevez were unenforceable in law:
http://www.premierleague.com/public/downloads/publications/PL270407final.txt
That’s why Kia hasn’t taken any legal action, but only has a large mouth in the press. Kia may pray that Fifa awards hin some money otherwise all the money goes to WHU and he can try to explain to his mafia bosses where their money has gone.
I know this is difficult, because this is the sort of stuff I have to read and decide every day and I, for one, can’t wait to retire – but you’ve got it fundamentally wrong in a number of aspects.
What you’re doing is a common mistake; you are using your own judgement on what has been decided, instead of looking at the process to find out if decision was ‘unreasonable’ i.e. one that no reasonable body could possibly have reached. If you want to know more about administrative law, read that Wednesbury case Otton refers to.
On the contract issue, the termination does NOT have to be agreed to satisfy rule U18. This is made clear at para 77 of Otton’s decision. It is the practical ability to influence performance (and not the legal right to do so) which is important. If MSI do sue and win (and that is a big ‘if’) the fact that they had to do so to assert their rights would in itself show they had no practical ability to influence the performance of the team. Merely by stating that it would not be bound by the contract and continuing to assert this have WH satisfied rule U18.
On your other main point, that the PL should have taken a legal opinion and more account of Sheff U’s position, well that’s merely your opinion, and as Otton makes clear throughout his judgement, a review is not a decision on the merits of a decision, but on whether it was made lawfully by correct procedure and process. He decided it was so end of story.
WH could have been deducted points and the PL could have later decided it wasn’t happy with the termination. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. They didn’t, and that’s it!
Interesting…but i think you’ve missed an important fact in West Hams view of the 3rd party agreements, point (ii) of the EPLs instructions to West Ham indicates that they have raised the point that their consel considers the agreements to be void and unenforcable. That was BEFORE the termination letter was issued.
I would suggest that MSIs lack of activity in terms of securing the status of their agreement in court goes some way to proving that it’s not valid.
tc123 – try reading these archives and focus on the stories written in June.
I don’t need you to defend me – however if you are going to pass judgement I think it’s fair that you should have all the facts, the most important ones being those that reflect my opinion on the situation.
JJLLB – I didn’t pass any judgement here (please read again) – and I completely agree with the arbitration panel that while PL were wrong they weren’t unreasonable, and that the arbitration panel has no authority to reprimand the PL.
Come on guys, leave your blind rage and bias at home and try to read what’s written and take things in context of what’s been written before.
zzzzzzzz.ho sorry ive just woke up after being bored into submission by lame dire articles that keep going over the same old thing about tevez.So whats the topic for today something new i hope….ho its tevez again.goodnight.zzzzzzzz
who cares any more? why are we still dragging this rubbish up. Sheffield were relegated because they did not produce the goods over 38 games give it a rest and move on to the new season
I have read many times the notes from both hearings and the only bullshit (Ahmed Bilal’s comment, not mine) is coming from the pen of said Ahmed Bilal. Quite what he intends to accomplish by writing such drivel is anyones guess but from day one there has been an assumption that West Ham must be deducted points for the rule breach. Yet for all the millions of words that have been written , I don’t think anyone can point to the Premier League rule that says points will be deducted for the original rule breach. Deducting points from West Ham is what the jounos wanted as it makes better reading. You can judge whether the PL got it right by the success of McCabe of Sheff Utd, or Joorbchian and any subsequent court action against the PL or WHU. I hear silence………..
The issue that needs to be addressed is why the PL have acted in support of WHU throughout this whole saga.
They are meant to be independent and to act to further the interests of all the PL clubs. Their actions have directly caused all PL clubs and football in general to be seen as corrupt, or have become totally bored. Is this what is meant by furthering the interests of PL football? This will inevitably lead to a negative impact upon the interests of all PL clubs.
Comments regarding the success or otherwise of the challenges to the arbitration panel and the high court are not relevant, these were very narrow reviews of the procedure followed, not of the whole situation.
Even now when we have the mased ranks of the ManU legal team stating they have seen the documentation and are confident that they were dealing with the correct authority in negotiating with MSI, the PL insist that there is nothing wrong.
This stance may have some support in their “Alice in Wonderland” world but everyone in real worl knows better.
Well, Ahmed, you don’t seem to appreciate the meaning of the expression “void ab initio”. There is no need for the parties to consent when a clause of an agreement is declared void ab initio. What this phrase means is that there was no agreement to begin with. Such situations can and do arise, for example when parties mistakenly agree to do things that are illegal or otherwise impossible, or when they include clauses in an agreement that frustrate the fundamental purpose of that agreement.
You may use the expression “termination” to describe such a declaration only if you can identify the specific enforceable duty that was terminated. If the declaration that a clause is void ab initio turns out to be true as a matter of fact, then there is no clause in the first place, and therefore no need for the other parties to “consent” to anything.
Obviously the other parties may disagree about the facts, and they may even sue on this basis, but their mere disagreement cannot change the fact that the clause never existed as a legally binding commitment if it did not in fact exist. Still less does the empty phrase “all rights are expressly reserved” (equivalent to saying “we may do whatever we are entitled to do”) – issued by a lawyer in a hurry and in advance of investigating the facts of the matter – imply any disagreement with the facts as announced or any intention to sue.
All this is Contract Law 101.
The question of how to resolve the situation that arises after a common mistake made by the parties has come to light is then a separate question. In the normal course of such matters the parties will negotiate in good faith to continue their contractual relationship in an amended form or to dissolve it in a fair and equitable manner. This process can prove difficult when further commitments have been entered into before the common mistake was discovered. In the case of the MSI-WHU-Tevez agreement the main “further commitment” of this kind was the registration of Carlos Tevez as a West Ham player until June 2010.
Rob Pratt- that was a great analogy and it really represents what the situation was.
and what is with west ham fans getting so wound up and paranoid for, they think the whole world is against them. i was actually happy when they stayed up.
Great comment from JJ LLB. I have a basic knowledge of contract law and have seen many misleading & downright wrong accusations made about this ruling and whole case in general.
As JJ LLB The reason for the second arbitration hearing was to see that the correct procedure and process, which in their opinion ,it had.
As JJ LLB says there is alot of ‘what ifs ‘ involved here.
The main article makes the point that in the second panels ‘ opinion ‘ they would have deducted points. Who is to say another panel would have come to the same opinion ?
A particular irritation to me is the assumption that had West Ham been deducted points it would have been three !! Why not one or two ? The P.L were satisfied as too Tevez’s right to play, so the points would not have been linked to his appearances. Even if they had deducted three points , Sheff Utd were only one goal better off than West Ham. Knowing they had to make up goal diference as well as points , who is to say that they would not clawed back that advantage too.
What’s interesting is that the FAPL ignored the legal status of tearing up a legal contract unillaterally, as long as it’s rules could be complied with.
Neither the arbitration or the High Court appeal on the arbitration have been asked to directly look at this issue and the consequential effect upon SUFC.
Once FIFA have given their ruling on the Tevez/Man Utd transfer that highlights someone’s defficiencies in this whole matter, expect SUFC to wade in with a law suite writ for £50m+ against someone. My guess is that it will be West Ham for a breach of faith.
Rob Platt- That is a fair point but goal difference does make a difference in the league. And in Holland, it won PSV the league, by a goal. I don’t think it helped their legal challenge.
Oxford, dream on.
JJLLB and HammerJammer are spot on with their comments.
How refreshing to come across people who actually seem to know what they are talking about in all this.
Phil, read JJLLB’s and HammerJammer’s comments. The PL could not have done anything else.
the reason chris why hammers fans were getting so wound up is because the name of the club has been dragged thru the mud over the course of last season and it dragged on til now.But u will see that many hammers fans are so drained because of all the garbage the fish n chip newspapers were writng that they like myself are so sick n tired of it all that we just dont care anymore and just want west ham to be allowed to get on with their planning and preperation for next season
I think if West Ham were not in te relegation battle they would have been fined and deducted 10 points or so, But because they could have been relegated from the Premier League it was just a fine..
Ahmed, how is calling the PL’s actions ‘Bullshit’ not passing judgement?
JJLLB seems to actually know something about the law relating to this matter (more than you do, I suspect) and has put you right in a calm and considered way. You seem unable to accept this and instead accuse him of showing ‘blind rage’. Stop showing yourself up and listen to reason.
If the West Ham argument that the contract with MSI did not exist ab initio, on what basis did West Ham file the Tevez and Mascherano registrations last August?
This whole mess is flying in the face of natural justice at present. West Ham’s Devine intervention at Ewood Park was one of those things and cannot be challenged but the rest of this increasingly bizarre episode could yet crash down on Upton Park and increasingly looks like it will do.
West Ham took advantage of the economic conditions existing in Latin America to do the MSI deal and then told lies to the FAPL. The old ownership then found an even richer old fool to flog the club off to and the deal which would have become kosher post hoc with Joorabchian became illegal.
Now they have been fined £5.5m but already recovered £1m of that through placement prize money because of the Tevez goals. Nowe the FAPL have not only failed to deduct points which the Arbitration Panel said they should have done but are trying to force Man U to pay them something like £30m, the majorityy of which under FAPL rules has to stay with West Ham.
Never mind change of ownership etc etc, in English law a body corporate is its own legal personality and West Ham today cannot be forgiven or excused what West Ham did in August 2006. They are one and the same thing- Eggert bought the steaming mess eyes wide open and if Brown told him porkies, he should go to law.
Joorabchianm is biding his time- he can go to law any time he wants just as he could have legally told Tevez to walk out of West Ham the moment West Ham ripped up the contract. By being patient, Joorabchian now has Man U fighting his legal battles for him. Smart move.
Man U are ruthless and if Ferguson tells his board he wants Tevez playing for them this August, watch the the threats, the tricks, the persuasion and the shear use of power push everything out of their way. If West Ham do not end up in the deepest of trouble as a side effect of Man U’s determination, they will once again have been incredibly lucky. At some point Scudamore will have to find a way to cut the Hammers loose to fight their own battle no doubt with a second FAPL disciplinary charge to face as well.
Just a technical point for HammerJammer- you have neatly encapsulated the West Hamn position- that the clases which were void ab initio be struck out and the remainder of the deal continues whilst the parties negotiate a replacement in good faith (your words).
Three flaws:
1) There seems to be ample evidence that West Ham have not conducted themselves in good faith with MSI. Unilateral ripped up contract, unreturned phone calls and letters etc etc
2) West Ham claim to have ripped up ALL the contracts so it is not a matter of amending the offending clauses.
3) MSI will surely argue that the clauses which are said to be void ab initio are the essence of the contract so the contract should be set aside in toto and the asset returned to him. As the fate of £30m from Man U seems to hang on this, it would be hard to argue that the clauses were not the essence of the contract and that he would not have entered into the agreement without it. I am pretty sure that the contract between West Ham and MSI included a requirement on West Ham to register the players properly so the onus on the legality of registration rested fairly and squarely with West Ham. This is one of the reasons West Ham accepted the judgement and fine by the way.
Some good points, A Rover. Let me elaborate a bit further.
West Ham registered T&M in the mistaken belief that the third-party influence clause was binding. It was specifically because of this mistaken belief that the club was fined £ 2.5 million. This is made clear in paragraph 16 of the decision of the FAPL independent disciplinary tribunal dated 27 April:
“… In assessing the appropriate penalty, we have proceeded upon the premise that these contracts would in fact have been unenforceable both as against the player and the club. However, we are equally clear and proceed upon the premise that West Ham believed that they were entering into valid, enforceable contracts and were of that belief at all relevant times. We do not believe, nor has it been suggested, that they were aware of the deficiencies in the contracts. … ”
As I noted in my earlier posting, this registration was the main “further commitment” entered into on the basis of a clause that was void ab initio. This commitment is a separate legal transaction (involving the player, the club and the league, and perhaps also the player’s former club) that is not affected by the discovery that the earlier clause was void.
Player registration is a transaction that records and confirms a certain disposition of intangible rights: the right of a player to play in official competitions. One peculiarity of the Tevez situation is that MSI cannot be a party to player registration, and so the intangible rights in question cannot be vested in MSI. This is simply because MSI is not a football club engaged in official competition.
Indeed the reason why this odd situation developed in the first place is because MSI originally sought to secure such a (de facto) status by acquiring West Ham United. The Tevez situation is actually fallout from a failed takeover bid. Indeed it would appear that the prospective buyer jumped the gun by arranging (from the position of a controlling interest in Corinthians) a transfer of intangible assets to a business that it intended to buy, but before the sale had been properly concluded. It seems fairly obvious that this was done because of the transfer window institution, but it also occurs to me that there may have been some desire on MSI’s part to move these assets away from Corinthians as quickly as possible.
It is strictly irrelevant to the player registration whether the void clause invalidates the entire original agreement, but it is obvious that some renegotiation of the original agreement is necessary, either to dissolve it or to re-establish the original intentions of the parties on a sound footing. There are indications that some negotiations of this kind took place but were inconclusive. I’m not sure where you got the idea of “ample evidence that West Ham have not conducted themselves in good faith with MSI”. However, I stress the point that player registration is a legally separate transaction. That transaction will stand whatever happens to the original MSI-WHU-Tevez agreement.
As holders of the player registration until 2010 there is no way to cut West Ham out of any transfer deal. MSI has suggested that some escape clause can be invoked, but the CEO of ManUre specifically considers this question to be unresolved. The value of the transfer is crucially affected by the disposition of playing rights. No club will want to pay a large transfer fee to a third party for a player who remains registered to another club. Equally, it is nonsense to suggest that West Ham would loan the player to ManUre. Tevez is hardly surplus to requirements at West Ham.
Natural justice is a very odd creature to raise its head in the context of the Tevez situation, which is the outcome of a complex web of highly artificial rules. Not least is the point that third-party employment (better known as agency work) is entirely commonplace in the world outside of the FAPL, and so the £5.5 million fine paid by West Ham only makes sense within that world. Separation of undefined “economic rights” from “playing rights” (i.e. registration) is also a peculiarity of competitive team sports. This peculiarity is the entire foundation of the player transfer system, which in turn justifies the expenditure of football clubs in youth training schemes and various other forms of investment in players.
We can equally well understand that MSI merely made a monumentally expensive financial blunder in the course of a clumsy takeover bid. Such things happen in business all the time and huge sums can be and often are simply “absorbed by the market”. The notion of “natural justice” is not intended to prevent fools (or even wise men) from being separated from their money when they engage in business transactions with a view to profit. If you are stupid enough to build your house on a frozen lake, then you need to be smart enough to sell it before the spring thaw.
There is no need to rely on any assumed discharge from liability due to a change in ownership and nobody is doing so. The discharge comes through the FAPL rules, which are agreed by all of the FAPL clubs as a condition of membership, and which include a disciplinary procedure that even covers acts of bad faith. This disciplinary procedure has now been played out to its absolute end point and constitutes a final limitation of liability to the penalty imposed.
I can see that you are still royally pissed off by what happened at Ewood Park on 17 March and I sympathise. West Ham were also victims of some atrocious refereeing decisions last season, and we all grudgingly learn to accept this as part of the game.
Ok, you got Tevez for nothing on a totally dodgy contract.
Got fined £5,5m which your placement money reduces by £1m and are now claiming that MSI loused up so you are entitled to £30m from Man U.
And the arbitrators said they would have deducted the points.
If that doesn’t add up to being the luckiest so and so’s in the history of football being triply rewarded for rule breaking, I do not know what is.
Anyway, I see FIFA are backing away from adjudicating because under their rules, Man U would be able to trade with MSI.
I still think that if the core issue- who is entitled to the fee from Man U- goes to Court in England, West Ham will lose.
If MSI has such a strong position legally and the same applies to MU. Then WHY don’t they go to court????????
HammerJammer, thanks for your enlightening book on the subject
I actually appreciate the info. It answers a couple of my own questions.
Is it my imagination or does this thing now seemingly turn out to be ManU’s fault? (comment 25).
Ahmed,
no you don’t need me to defend you because you’re indefensible. My point was that in not publishing ALL the facts you’ve proved that you are selective, judgemental and moralistic based on less than half a picture, therefore ignorant and happy to be. Nowhere so than your defence of an opinion based only on a selection of the facts. You fit the facts to your opinion.
“however if you are going to pass judgement I think it’s fair that you should have all the facts, the most important ones being those that reflect my opinion on the situation.”
So yes I am passing judgment on your less than reasoned response. Your opinions are worthless and you are not interested in getting at the truth only perpetuating your prejudices.
Live on in ignorance and when WH win out you will look even more stupid than you do now.
#Phil – 13
“Even now when we have the mased ranks of the ManU legal team stating they have seen the documentation and are confident that they were dealing with the correct authority in negotiating with MSI, the PL insist that there is nothing wrong. This stance may have some support in their “Alice in Wonderland†world but everyone in real worl knows better.”
Phil
If you wish to argue against West Ham’s position see “A Rover”’s post #26. It is interesting and an informed post.
Your post is frankly embarressing. You state a position justified by nothing more than your own bias. I love the fact that as a result of Man Utd holding a specific legal position that it must be correct in your own “Alice in Wonderland” world. I am sure that the Premier League and West Ham and others can’t afford lawyers who give them legal advice too. Probably they just make it up as they go along? Don’t you think Man Utd’s lawyers are looking after their client’s interests like every other lawyer?
Whatever the eventual outcome, it is very complicated and no-one is 100% in the wrong… except you obviously.
It’s funny that the most biased people on this are not Sheff Utd or West Ham fans – it is now generally Man Utd fans who seem to think that Man Utd think X so it must be right (Phil, Bilal etc)
To misquote Kevin Keegan, if West Ham drag this out long enough that Man Utd can’t sign Tevez until January window, I would LUV IT, I WOULD REALLY LUV IT.
Rover,
It would be smart to reserve judgement on which party will eventually profit from the Tevez situation, as it’s not over yet. However, we can hardly blame the new regime at West Ham from skilfully playing the hand that they have been dealt.
The suggestion about what might “go to court in England” is interesting partly because England is probably the legal venue that would be most likely to uphold the view of the FAPL and WHU in this case. The main reason for this is that the English judiciary (and the UK government) traditionally view sport as a self-regulating domain. Efforts to secure judicial review are likely to founder on the fundamental question of competence, i.e. has the Premier League exceeded its powers in insisting that the club for which a player is registered is entitled to control the terms of any transfer of that player to another club while the registration remains current? If the court finds that the FAPL has acted within the margin of discretion that its rules allow, then the merits of the case will never be examined in court. This is in some ways the same insurmountable obstacle that Sheffield United ran into recently.
Even if the case was admissible in an English court, there is no guarantee that MSI would be adjudged to be entitled to a remedy. It is not the role of the courts to rescue the owners of businesses from the consequences of their own bad judgement. Nobody forced MSI to bring Tevez to England and see him registered as a West Ham player until 2010. In some ways this was like allowing a new tenant to gain sitting tenant rights in your home with the consent of a prospective buyer before settling the question of who owns the house. When the sale falls through you are left with a property now occupied by a sitting tenant who retains the right to occupy the property even if it is sold to a new owner. This may be a catastrophically expensive business blunder, but the court can give you no remedy unless some law was broken.
Things like this happen all the time in business, especially where intangible rights are concerned.
I think the situation might be significantly different if it concerned a transfer to a club competing in another part of the world. Such a club might petition its local league to register the player regardless of the current registration for another club in a foreign league. This would amount to de facto cancellation of that current registration, and the safest way to achieve this would clearly be through FIFA. In turn there would also be no question that the FIFA dispute resolution process had jurisdiction.
The irony of the contrast with Alex Ferguson’s attitude towards the projected transfer of Gabriel Heinze has also not been lost on many commentators.
Well as far as I can tell the case being brought by MSI is to be heard in the High Court.
FIFA declined to act (they made it very clear that under FIFA rules they would have sided with MSI and it is not their job to enforce the FAPL more restrictive rules) so the argument that the commercial law would defer to sporting law is superceded.
CAS is an arbitration, not a court, and of course both parties have the option of going to binding arbitration or to Court.
I guess West Ham’s eviction of Tevez from his flat is going to be the most expensive eviction in history.
The FAPL are very neatly lining up West Ham as the recipients of Sheff U’s £50m damages claim with Scudamore’s “we gave West Ham three options and they chose the most difficult one but the only one which would keep Tevez playing.”
So if West Ham lose in the High Court, it is no collection of Man U’s £20m (and in your analogy of tenants, you do not go to the point at which the tenant receives the capital value of the asset when it is eventually sold which very clearly the FAPL requires in this case if West Ham are to avoid a seconf disciplinary hearing), a £50m payment to Sheff U plus the consequences of being clobbered by the new FAPL disciplinary which will inevitably mean relegation in 07/08- another £50m.
£130m loss on chucking Tevez out of his flat….
Eggert looks more like humpty dumpty every day.
A Rover:
“they made it very clear that under FIFA rules they would have sided with MSI and it is not their job to enforce the FAPL more restrictive rules”
When did they say that then? Serious question. Or did you just imagine it?
Fifth Column (and other WHU knowledgables):
I’m just trying to understand this situation better and A Rover brought up an interesting point…
Eggert said previously that they ‘own’ Tevez and he is not for sale. They blocked the MU medical and claimed that MU made a deal without their consent.
1. Why then did they evict him from his flat?
2. Is that not contradictory to his public statements of the time?
3. Legally, is that a wise move seeing that this might now go to court?
Rover
I’m not sure that FIFA offered any view on the substance of the dispute over registration. They are simply unwilling to get involved in an entirely domestic matter, effectively setting themselves up as some kind of appelate authority in such matters.
The NOTW report of an alleged eviction is a bit puzzling in view of the earlier Daily Star story that Tevez had “filled 14 cases as he cleaned out his Canary Wharf flat”. The eviction story suggested that Julien Faubert had moved in, but the media were offering desperately little information on what was really going on. The reports do not even suggest that West Ham were asked for an explanation.
Now anybody who has ever arranged in-company accommodation for mobile foreign employees knows that a certain amount of shuffling often goes on. Tevez was initially placed in a flat that was too small for his needs, and I understand that the Canary Wharf place was also inadequate in some ways. Faubert needed to be accommodated quickly and the Canary Wharf place had been “cleaned out” and was going to be unoccupied all summer. How does this state of affairs necessarily show that any “eviction” occurred?
If this story is the best piece of evidence that Graham Shear can find to argue that West Ham have relinquished their claims in the case, then the writ cannot have much substance. The High Court does not even sit in August and September, so there is no chance of an evidentiary hearing – at most a judge will hear arguments in chambers. By this time there may also be a case pending at the CAS in Geneva, with consequent technical problems over jurisdiction. This is already far beyond the scale of a case in which a judge in chambers will issue even an interim security measure.
The rest of your post is pure fantasy. I suspect that you haven’t read the award of the arbitration panel dated 3 July, but anyway, take a look at the second half of this award (paragraphs 40-80). West Ham complied with all FAPL instructions and have continued to do so to date. There is nothing to hang new disciplinary proceedings on. As for the suggestion that this can expose the Hemmers to civil liability towards another FAPL member, take a look at the FAPL rules and you will notice that they specifically limit any such liability to the outcome of disciplinary proceedings.
Sorry about the smug response, but this matter is a genuinely complex conflict that deserves a bit less tribal loyalty and a lot more serious analysis.
None of us are High Court Judges so let’s sit back and watch the fun.
I am sure that Hammer Jammer is looking forwards to Man U being banned from all transfer activity for at least a season as a result of West Ham’s already stated claim for tapping up whilst enjoying the £20m transfer fee stashed away at the Boleyn from Real Madrid for the transfer of Tevez with minimal payment to MSI…..
We can all dream that the ball crossed the line at Ewood.
[...] before you try to burn the site down…read this, this, this, this and this – at the very least you’ll have some context for this [...]
Who knows the “truth” behind this debate? All I know is that IF West Ham cheated, they should have been/be docked points. If not, they deserve their Premiership status. I would like it to go to court to find out the truth (or at least as near as possible).
To all those who say it doesn’t matter, it does. This is about the standards of the game we love, and if they are allowed to sink then this ultimately robs all of us.
Paul
“cheated” is a meaningless term.
West Ham broke the rules. There has never been anyone break that particular rule before and there was no requirement under the rules to dock points. It was for the disciplinary panel to make the decision as to the punishment.
All the documents were produced at the arbitration panel (as pointed out by West Ham in their “#### off” tyoe statement to Sheff Utd yesterday night).
The bigger teams (yes Ahmed, them again) consistently break the “tapping up” rules e.g. Chelsea and when they were found guilty the rules stated that they MUST have a points deduction yet strangely they only got a fine. By the rules, that was more serious than what West Ham pleaded guilty to.
From Times OnlineAugust 17, 2007
Do Sheffield United have a case?Anthony Sendall
Having lost out in their attempt to use the courts to force disciplinary action over the Carlos Tevez saga, Sheffield United now plan to sue West Ham for the cost of their relegation from the Premier League. Legally speaking, it is difficult to see how United can prove its case.
It is by no means clear precisely how the case will be put in law, but it seems from the club’s reference to “breaches of contract” that it will challenge West Ham’s adherence to the contract that underpins clubs’ membership of the Premier League. Sheffield United asserts that West Ham was dishonest with the league over the ownership by a third party of Tevez and Javier Mascherano. They are likely to assert that the misrepresentation was not only negligent but fraudulent.
Assuming United can prove that, they will still have a difficult battle to demonstrate what, if any, loss was suffered directly as a result.
The club is claiming that relegation cost £30 million to £50 million. But was that really all down to Tevez? Yes, his goal on the last day of the season was the final twist of the knife for the Blades – the irony of which cannot be lost on any follower of the game – but to claim that West Ham could not have stayed up without him is highly speculative.
Relegation depends on the outcome of all 38 games each team plays in a season. Tevez did not play in all of them and Sheffield United were consistently poor performers. And if West Ham couldn’t register him, they may have found another player of similar calibre.
Nor did presence certainly had no impact on United’s performance. It must also be remembered that United only had to draw against Wigan in the last game in order to stay up. To that extent, at least, the team’s survival was in its own hands. It is hard to see how United will come up with evidence compelling enough to get around that.
The author is a sports lawyer at Littleton Chambers