Wednesday September 24,2008
By Mick Dennis
LET'S nail some of the myths in the Carlos Tevez affair, and let's start
with the ludicrous lie that he kept West Ham in the Premier League. The
arrival of Tevez and Javier Mascherano in 2006 was hugely disruptive to West
Ham. Players who had reached the FA Cup final the previous season reacted
badly to having superstars parachuted into their midst. They lost eight and
drew one of the next nine games, failing to score in seven of them.
Mascherano was quickly dropped and Tevez stomped out of the ground after
being substituted in November. Yet the first two-thirds of that season, when
the Argentinians were disruptive and dispirited, are forgotten. Instead,
folk look only at the climax to the campaign. It is true that the seven
goals Tevez scored that season all came in the final 10 games and that West
Ham won seven of their last 11. But goalkeeper Rob Green was outstanding,
and so was the way manager Alan Curbishley prepared and deployed his men. To
suggest it was all down to Tevez is to demonstrate a profound ignorance of
football.
And it is a wilful revision of history to suggest that Sheffield United did
not deserve to go down. They scored only eight away goals all season, lost
14 away games and lost eight of their last 11 fixtures. They were the third
worst team in the division.
Now let's kill the canard that West Ham's use of Tevez was especially dodgy.
The London club did deliberately deceive the Premier League and, when
challenged, continued to lie. It was shameful behaviour. Yet if they had
declared all the facts at the outset, then Tevez could have been properly
registered – just as his move to Manchester United and Mascherano's transfer
to Liverpool were legitimate.
The rules West Ham broke relate to "third-party influence" but, crucially,
none was exerted. Finally, let's deal with the paranoid delusion that the
Premier League had shown favouritism to West Ham or treated Sheffield United
with disdain. It's just tosh. The League's chief executive, Richard
Scudamore, was apoplectic when he learnt that West Ham had lied to him. The
League set up an independent commission, comprising a QC who specialises in
fraud, an experienced arbitration expert and a neutral official from the
Football League. They hit West Ham with a record £5.5million fine.
Sheffield United appealed. So another independent panel was convened. They
heard no evidence from West Ham yet said a points penalty might have been
appropriate.
Importantly, however, the second panel decided that the original tribunal
had acted properly and that their decision was not perverse enough to
overturn.
United went to the High Court, and lost again. The court said the Premier
League had acted properly and fairly and that it would have been wrong for
the Premier League to have intervened in the independent procedures of the
two tribunals.
Yet United talked about going to the European Court of Justice. Instead they
went to the FA – and now a precedent has been set. If your club is
relegated, find someone else to blame, brief your lawyers, and keep fighting
until somebody sees things your way.
United have secured their victory. But football has suffered a damaging
defeat.
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