not sure of premiership rules but I would suggest that half the teams in the prem league could join together and insist that the punishment be reviewed because it set a bad precedent, and indeed went against previous precedent - what do you think?
[cite]Posted By: Mortain[/cite]Tevez registration as a west ham player has never been in question.
He has always been eligable to play for west ham. Therefore has never played "illegally".
The rule that was broken was the third party influence rule.
This was a clause in both tevez & mascherano's contracts with west ham saying their owners could sell either player in the january transfer window without consulting west ham, paying £2m compensation to west ham if tevez was sold and a smaller fee if mascherano was sold. This was dramatically decreased if either was sold in a subsquent transfer window.
This is all the 3rd party influence was. (i.e. they can control our selection policy by simply selling them on, which we could do sod all about).
The contract wasn't ripped up with their owners after the hearing, just amended removing this clause, as a player signing a contract extension would do.
As the january transfer window had passed, this clause become somewhat pointless anyway as the fees were much less, so didn't really affect any parties involved by removing it.
So all this has been over the owners of both players having an influence on our team selection, which they haven't actually influenced all season.
I have read the Commissions judgement in full. You talk as if the two things are unconnected. The players would not have been offered to West Ham so that they could register them unless West Ham agreed to sign Third Party agreements which were against the rules. West Ham could have held out for amended contracts which didn't break the rules but there wasn't time; so according to the Commission, they entered into the agreements which were against the rules and we thus able to register the players before the window closed.
West Hams offence was not the failure to correctly register the players but they only got the chance to register them provided they broke the rules of the league in order to do so.
The joke of this whole fiasco is the maladministration of the FAPL in failing effectively to investigate the deals fully in August/September and then when the truth came out later in January, to take months to reach a conclusion.
In my view the FAPL knew that they would be in all kinds of problems were they to effectively relegate West Ham, not least that West Ham would pursue them through the courts and, because of the seriousness of the issues, the courts may well intervene. So they briefed the Commission to fine them rather than relegate them (effectively). They were aware that this would cause difficulties for them with the club who got relegated instead but they were legally on stronger ground having given West Ham a large unprecedented fine.
FIFA will now get involved so anything is possible. For my part I think it would now be quite wrong to send West Ham down and keep Sheff Utd up. The only way out of this is for a compromise where Sheff Utd are either compensated financially for their loss of future income or for a stay of relegation for them.
Comments
I have read the Commissions judgement in full. You talk as if the two things are unconnected. The players would not have been offered to West Ham so that they could register them unless West Ham agreed to sign Third Party agreements which were against the rules. West Ham could have held out for amended contracts which didn't break the rules but there wasn't time; so according to the Commission, they entered into the agreements which were against the rules and we thus able to register the players before the window closed.
West Hams offence was not the failure to correctly register the players but they only got the chance to register them provided they broke the rules of the league in order to do so.
The joke of this whole fiasco is the maladministration of the FAPL in failing effectively to investigate the deals fully in August/September and then when the truth came out later in January, to take months to reach a conclusion.
In my view the FAPL knew that they would be in all kinds of problems were they to effectively relegate West Ham, not least that West Ham would pursue them through the courts and, because of the seriousness of the issues, the courts may well intervene. So they briefed the Commission to fine them rather than relegate them (effectively). They were aware that this would cause difficulties for them with the club who got relegated instead but they were legally on stronger ground having given West Ham a large unprecedented fine.
FIFA will now get involved so anything is possible. For my part I think it would now be quite wrong to send West Ham down and keep Sheff Utd up. The only way out of this is for a compromise where Sheff Utd are either compensated financially for their loss of future income or for a stay of relegation for them.