West Ham must be laughing their socks off, as the Tevez situation appears to be developing in a way that will actually leave them with a "PROFIT"!!! Now that the case is in the process of going to the "High Court" yet again, there is talk of an out of court "PAY OFF" to West Ham, and guess how much that is.......its £6million!!! for them to release his registration. That will leave them with £500K profit after paying the "so called" fine of £5.5million, and does not take into account the "MILLIONS" they have gained by staying in the "Premier League. This cannot be allowed to happen!!! It is a complete injustice and something must be done about it. The whole of football should make a stance and expel West Ham from the league if necessary, if it proves that 3rd party influence does still exist despite West Hams repeated assurances that the agreement was terminated. As far as I understand it takes two parties to terminate an agreed contract and Whatisname!!! (can't spell his name) claims he did not agree to do so.
I am beginning to think that the best thing to come out of this will be Tevez playing for United and West Ham getting the money. It is obvious they were violating the third-party ownership rules and the knew they were doing it. Therefore if the league give WHU the money and transfer him to United with no punishment to WHU then the whole world can see how inbred the Premier League has become. If they were to relegate WHU and promote SU then it would fool the world into believing that the Premier League have morals, or indeed, a backbone.
I don't really see the big deal. It all seems like technicalities, semantics and details to me. West Ham managed to persuade a world class player to turn out for them, but he was owned by an investor. The practise is against the rules here and a heavy fine was imposed, end of story. To go back to this argument that teams should be relegated or promoted on anything other than the outcome of football matches sets a horrific precedent IMHO. At the end of every season we could see a barrage of court cases and appeals that result in the teams which got more points going down etc. The most important thing to me is that West Ham played brilliantly to survive. I know some of you feel that the fact they fielded a player with dubious paperwork makes these results inelligible, but I don't see it that way. At its core, I don't think football should be about the paperwork, but what happens on the pitch.
The issue is not being returned to, a whole new one has come to light. There is now no chance of Sheffield United being reinstated to the Prem, nor are they any longer claiming they should be. The fact is that when West Ham were found guilty of the Third Party offence they were punished with a fine of £5.5 mil (which was too small, but is not relevant any more) and they were forced to rip up the third party agreement that they held with Kia Joorabchian. It was on this basis that they were allowed to continue playing Tevez, and therefore they stayed up, with the Premier League thinking, like the idiots they are, that West Ham and only West Ham owned Tevez. However, now that Man Utd want him, Joorabchian has come out and claimed that all transfer proceeds shoul go to him, maning that Tevez still belongs in part to him, and showing that they ignored the Prem's orders and are STILL violating the rule. It is clear that West Ham should not be relegated as that would send both leagues into chaos, however they should be fined an astronomic amount, and Tevez should be booted out of the Premier League, and the fact that West Ham could come out of this fiasco with a profit is unbelievable.
The point people miss in this saga is the desperation we all had for West Ham to go down. They had a new owner, and had just beugun spending silly money, and kick started the transfer market we see today. Oh how we would have enjoyed the look on Eggerts face as Championship footie was confimrmed. It did not happen, but we all still wish it will, as most people like West Ham about as much as they like Millwall.
Actually WHU didn't ignore the PL's orders - they were asked the recind the contract with Joorabchian and they did. The problem is that unilateral ripping up of contracts is not really the done thing in law for obvious reasons. So actually the PL asked them to do something that wasn't really possible in practice. The whole problem here is the shambolic efforts of the PL to protect their brand by attempting to sweep the whole issue under the carpet. They've opened a massive can of worms and this thing will only get worse before it starts to get better.
Good. Anything which opens the Premier League to further scrutiny is great news. I hope the affair continues to damage the reputation of the corrupt old boys club which is our top division. Sir Faxalot, you know my feelings towards West Ham and Millwall echo yours, but let's not forget what utter c*nts Sheff utd are too. In an ideal world they'd both have been relegated.
I am glad that UEA, our resident legal beagle, has commented on this as I was not 100% sure about the unilateral tearing up of the contract bit, thanks for confirming that my understanding was more or less right. The real reason I raised the topic is that I am absolutely appalled that West Ham could actually come out of this with a profit rather than a punishment. :rant: :rant: :rant: I agree with whoever it was that said that relegation is very unlikely to happen now and I also agree that West Ham should get a truly massive fine, if it proves that "Whatsisname" is still the owner of Tevez. THEY CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO COME OUT OF THIS WHOLE AFFAIR WITH A PROFIT!!! :rant: :rant: :rant:
Here is the thing though. Nothing will happen. The Premier League does what it wants, when it wants and how it wants. We can do nothing, and until some kind of implosion happens when it gets too big, there is nothing anyone can say to change their ways. If Sky were split up, and the TV money stopped flowing, then things would quickly turn sour as the huge salaries that have become the precedent rip their margins to shreds.
Yeah but that has had sod all effect. They still have more or less complete monopoly on most sports. I heard in the papers a while back that after NTL took them to court for the taking Sky channels off of Freeview and NTL - and lost - that a group of companies is putting together a case for splitting it up completely. Sort of like BT were ages ago.
The thing is BT had a real monopoly and were split up by the regulator as part of the measures to encourage more competition. Sky don't have a monopoly and they bid in a free market for the sports coverage rights. The EU forced the split of the football packages but you're right, the effect was negligible. Sky won back 5 out of 6 in a postal auction. Anyway, OFCOM won't let Sky remove their Freeview channels in the short term as it would be a breach of their licence.
its also worth noting that the breaking up of skys market domination on football has actually increased the prices as in a weird way they had made it a monopsony with no one else in a position to offer similar amounts. also as uea points out, BT was a natural monopoly and so are in a different position the point you were trying to make is that obce you stop the sky monopoly on football then the premier league would be in trouble, but the setanta experience suggests the opposite
Exactly. In the sports rights market more competition = higher tv income. When Sky were cruising along safe in the knowledge that they would win the bid every three years the amount was rising a lot less than it jumped up this last time. Ironically, it's also going to end up costing the consumer more as a £10/month subscription to Setanta is needed as well as the £34/month Sky one to watch all the matches. Well done EU Competition Commission :dismay:
The most important thing is not the price for the consumer, but the money paid to the League itself. If people want to blow £45 a month on a subscription then that should in theory even itself out through basic supply and demand. The higher the price, the lower the quantity demanded. That is a problem personal to the individual. When Sky had the full monopoly, they were still paying insane amounts of money to the League, it was just a lower amount than now. The corruption, overpricing and arrogance in football at the moment is all because of this money going to the League itself. If that money stopped flowing the League would quickly implode. However I'm not aware you can penalise a company for being too rich, unfortunately. :doom:
West Ham have ONLY got £2million, but can anybody tell me.............. WHY??? they have got anything at all ???
