If only they’d had the foresight to sign Perry Mason, Manchester United would be feeling a whole lot happier about their upcoming battles with West Ham over Carlos Tevez, and with Liverpool over Gabriel Heinze. How come we always seem to have trouble when Argentinians are involved?

What a build-up to the coming season for the champions. Lawyers are running around like demented midfielders (and making a lot of money at the same time, by the way) trying to work out whether they have enough evidence to convince the Court of Arbitration for Sports that they have a right to sign Tevez.

They’ve spent weeks trying to persuade everybody from the head groundsman at Upton Park to the brain-dead heads of the Football Association and Premier League that it’s a done deal. Trouble is there’s a certain South American businessman who claims to have a big stake in the player – I’m not quite sure what he means by “owning his economic rights” – and West Ham claim he’s theirs, and they have a contract to prove it. FIFA have done the one thing at which they are most adept – passed the buck!

'Perhaps they'll sort it out over a few crispy noodles and foo yung'


United are trying their hardest to keep things on a legal footing – “transparency” is the big in word at present – and West Ham are still trying to clean up the muddy footprints on the boardroom carpet from the original deal. Worse than the Queen Vic.

And on top of all that, we’ve now got the makings of a miniature civil war between United and Liverpool over an Argentinian of all people. Now this is the story so far . . .

Liverpool have had a bid of £6.8m for defender Gabriel Heinze turned down flat. This is the figure that Heinze claims he has in a letter allegedly relating to any buy-out of his contract, which incidentally still has two years to run at Old Trafford.

Now the last player to be transferred from United to Liverpool was a certain Phil Chisnall - and he lasted two seasons at Anfield, played six games, and scored one goal before moving on to Southend United. So you can hardly put him in the Heinze class.

United would sooner negotiate with Manchester City than Liverpool. It’s a no-no. Big transfer business between big clubs, and I mean BIG clubs, is a no-no (unless you happen to be Cashley Cole and you happen to drop into the same London eaterie as the Chelsea chief exec). But Rafa Benitez wasn’t to know this. They do things differently on the Continent and shuffle their players around like dominos.

Heinze's people are threatening to take United to court, presumably under some restraint of trade nonsense (and a spot of human rights thrown in). And United, for their part, are suggesting that Heinze was “tapped” and that his agent is anything but squeaky clean in this whole sorry affair.

United chief executive, David Gill, is confident that Heinze’s letter, which he claims to possess, does not override his contract with the club. And he also claims that he verbally informed Heinze's agent that United would not be prepared to do business with any of their main Premier League rivals, specifically Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea.

Over 6,000 miles away in China, Sir Alex Ferguson was in typically defiant mood. "Gabriel Heinze will not be joining Liverpool," he said immediately after his side's 6-0 pre-season win over Chinese League outfit Shenzhen in Macau.

And then came the interesting bit. "We are examining some of the statements coming from his agent and when contact was first made with Liverpool. We are not happy with the agent's conduct in the matter and we are examining that as well, but it will take a couple of days before we have anything more to say."

It so happens that Liverpool’s touring party are only 40 miles away from United, having landed in Hong Kong yesterday to play in the bi-annual Premier League Asia Cup competition. Perhaps they'll sort it out over a few crispy noodles and foo yung.

Final word (for the time being) goes to Benitez. "We made an offer and they rejected it. Now the lawyers are working on it," he said. “No we have to wait. We are still trying to push the deal through because he is a good player and a player we like."

If I had any sense I’d be selling court tickets.