Let me begin by stating that I have no allegiance whatsoever to any club in the Premiership. My team Leeds United are doomed to obscurity so I am writing as a neutral who loves the game. I’m concerned at the ongoing saga involving West Ham and the irregular signings of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.

I won't go into the mechanics of exactly what West Ham were supposed to have done wrong - like the readers of this piece, I only know what I have read in the newspapers and other media. But it seems to me that the clubs threatening to take the Premier League to court over the saga are clutching at straws.

There is an illogical strand to the argument that because Tevez has been playing well lately for the Hammers, so his presence has compromised Wigan, Sheffield United and Charlton’s chances of avoiding the drop. The clubs, along with Fulham, and as reported in Sunday’s Observer newspaper, possibly Middlesbrough and Aston Villa, are taking legal advice as to whether they can effectively bankrupt the Hammers even if the east London club are relegated. But their argument about Tevez’s alleged influence works both ways.

'It’s a bit rich of clubs to complain about irregular transfer dealings at West Ham when the whole system seems to be creaking under the weight of agents, corporations and unsavoury characters all keen to get their grubby hands on a slice of the creamy football cake awash with money'


He and Mascherano were playing decidedly badly for the Hammers at the beginning of their ill-fated adventure in England, so the Upton Park lawyers could just as easily argue that their presence in that period potentially was actually a causing factor in the club’s slippery slope down the table. Who knows, maybe without those players, the Hammers under the system effectively created by old boss Alan Pardew the season before, may have won games without the South American ‘superstars’. Pardew made no secret of the fact that the players were foisted upon him by the club; he would not have gone looking for them in the market.

I agree that the £5m fine imposed on West Ham for flouting Premier League rules was a tad light, and that yes, the PL could have taken points off. But then you are back to a scenario of weighing up a player or players' influence on the performance of an entire team. That West Ham have made a remarkable comeback latterly under Alan Curbishley with a resurgent Tevez in the lead role is beyond question, but the clubs in trouble at the bottom would do well to remember that they are struggling because they are not good enough, not because of Tevez.

Over a season, the table does not lie. Charlton and Wigan have had poor seasons, all the more surprising because over the past two campaigns, they have played to a higher standard. Where Charlton have a more valid argument is that in two crucial games, they were directly or indirectly ‘robbed’ of two points. In the home draw against Fulham - Pardew’s first for the club as manager - the linesman (I still can’t get myself to call them referees’ assistants) made a howler and from an ensuing free-kick that never was, Fulham levelled in injury time. And the Hammers’ revival was kick-started by a more than dubious away win at Blackburn where the referee should have been sent a link to opticians in his local area.

These for and against decisions make up the minutiae of a season and I’m sure fans can point to half a dozen going each way for their club over a campaign. It’s all part of the game and good makes for good banter at work on a Monday morning. What worries me is when a drama suddenly becomes a crisis with the subsequent instructing of lawyers, whose real interest, with the greatest of respect to their professional acumen, is to keep the case going on as long as possible.

And it’s a bit rich of clubs to complain about irregular transfer dealings at West Ham when the whole system seems to be creaking under the weight of agents, corporations and unsavoury characters all keen to get their grubby hands on a slice of the creamy football cake awash with money.

Unfortunately, this is where the game has ended up, so don’t single out West Ham for trying to pull a fast one. Instead reflect on a system which has failed to control the game spiralling out of control.

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