Carlos Tevez, West Ham and the recent verdict by three lawyers. What a nightmare. This is one of those stories I can't explain very well (can anyone?) so I thought I'd cheat and leave it to a journalist. Not any old journalist mind you, the best football journalist in England for many years (as voted by his peers). His name is Martin Samuel and he writes in The Times. For the record he supports West Ham although he is never biased towards them as a professional writer. Off the record I once had a #### next to him at the Millenium Stadium in Wales. It was half time of the Palace v West Ham game which we lost 1-0. My brother is also a journalist and got us press tickets but thats another story. Anyway, if you have 10 minutes to spare, read this article, tell me what you think.... P.S. Tevezgate was mine, not Martins. #### excellent hey?

Martin Samuels.

The Times  24/9/2008

The Right Honorable The Lord Griffiths, a man who collects lucrative legal commissions as enthusiastically as he does definite articles, is available as a mediator and arbitrator in the specialist areas of international and domestic commercial disputes, according to his CV. Pools forecasts are not mentioned, but even so, he could be worth a ring.

Griffiths can predict football matches, you see - right down to knowing how many points a team will get through a season, or in a sequence of matches. And using these special powers, he can factor in results from around England to give a precise monetary value on the worth of those wins. Griffiths is very talented. I bet he nails those ten home-wins coupons every week.

Yesterday, a tribunal led by Griffiths found that one player - Carlos Tévez - had decided the Premier League relegation issue in 2006-07, as fact. Not as opinion. Not with any vague doubt that the hundreds of other footballers, managers and coaches who were involved might have had some impact, too. Not with any pretence to evaluate their presence.

Griffiths said that Sheffield United went down because of Tévez. He, and two friends, then replayed the season in their mighty minds and, despite all of this action taking place in a hypothetical dimension, prepared to hand down a finite punishment, payable in hard cash. Be warned, this is what happens when you invite lawyers to the party.

It does not matter whether one has any sympathy for West Ham United. Senior club officials, including Scott Duxbury, who was inexplicably retained and promoted to chief executive, misled the Premier League over the signings of Tévez and Javier Mascherano, a scandal that could have resulted in the club being relegated. West Ham were fortunate that the league table was taken into account by the original independent commission, sitting on behalf of the Premier League, which decided to impose a financial penalty rather than a points deduction, for fear of deciding the relegation issue in a legal chamber, rather than on a football pitch.

Yet this ruling is as bad, if not worse, because it takes relegation issues away from the football pitch and back to the legal chamber. It sets a precedent that any relegated team with a grievance that can be put down cunningly to one incident, or one player, have a claim. The same applies to a team denied a prize, or perhaps a Champions League place. It moves English football nearer to the game in Italy or Brazil, where important issues are often not resolved until late in the close season and fixture lists are printed pending courtroom appeal.

Think of what happened between Watford and Reading on Saturday: the goal that never was. The Football League has announced that the match will not be replayed, despite a noble offer from Steve Coppell, the Reading manager. Yet what if Watford are two points short of promotion come the end of the season? What if Reading keep another team out of the Premier League by one point? Considering the Griffiths ruling, these clubs have a case against the Football League, or perhaps against Stuart Attwell, the referee.

It may not end there. Hull City looked to have started the season very well, then Danny Guthrie, of Newcastle United, broke Craig ####an's right leg with a foul tackle. If the fortunes of the club take a downturn with the loss of an important player, to what extent is Guthrie, or his club, responsible? And what might that be worth? Now that Griffiths has determined that a season can be played out accurately in a man's head, where does this end?

Perhaps the one saving grace of the ruling in favour of Sheffield United is that the claim was for compensation, not reinstatement, although Kevin McCabe, the club's plc chairman, may feel empowered to push for the big one now. Welcome to a world of 21-team leagues, of relegationlawyers4U.com. Welcome to a world in which the most important player at your club is no longer the striker, but the QC engaged by the owner.

Can one man keep a team up or relegate another? We all say these things, but they are unproven opinions, not hard facts. I think that Tévez may have been the difference for West Ham that season, just as Chris Waddle was for Tottenham Hotspur one year and Matthew Le Tissier was for just about his entire career at Southampton. But do I know this? No. A million intangible factors contribute to events in each season and every one is unquantifiable in finite terms. Yet the FA's independent tribunal took into account as one of Sheffield United's witnesses the testimony of the chief football writer of The Daily Telegraph, who said that Tévez kept West Ham up.

Now, I have a great deal of time for the chief football writer of The Daily Telegraph. He is a friend and a professional whom I respect enormously. Yet he is no more an expert in this matter than any devotee of football. Neither am I. If writers could predict the outcome of matches so precisely that we could say for certain, not just as an opinion, what specific factors have won and lost games, or how a match would have panned out had a single participant been removed, we would not need to work. No journalist would present his views as anything more than informed estimation. It is a punt, really. All of it. A good one, we hope, and we like to think entertaining, but a punt nonetheless.

So why was the man from the Telegraph even called? Why does an independent tribunal with the power to pass a ruling that will change football in England irrevocably rely in part on speculation and guesswork? It beggars belief. From this day, every football administrator in every league in the land will open his postbag in the month after the season has ended wincing, for ever in fear of the writ that will take him to court on nothing more than prophecy.

Sheffield United have been hawking this case from commission to courtroom to tribunal until they have found men misguided enough to believe that they can imagine the league programme and legislate on these visions. So what, exactly, are supporters buying tickets for now, if what they see may be rendered meaningless by the interpretation of a committee at a later date? Had West Ham been deducted three points at the time of the first commission for lying to the Premier League, few would have complained. Once the decision to fine was made, however, any further punishment would have to be issued retrospectively, with the season over.

Sheffield United know precisely what adjustment needs to be made to achieve the desired outcome, which is why Tévez's worth to West Ham is always calculated at three points. It is the number required to keep Sheffield United up on goal difference, astutely overriding their failings, as if these, too, could be put down to a player in a different match, representing a different team.

Sheffield United lost more away matches than any other club that season and scored fewer goals away from home. That is not the work of Tévez. Neil Warnock, the manager at the time, fielded a weakened side against Manchester United and lost and his team won only a single match in the last five, against Watford, when Steve Kabba, a former player, mysteriously did not play for their opponents. That was not down to Tévez, either.

Kabba is the sort of figure who could become hugely significant now that matches can be played in the minds of lawyers. He is on loan to Blackpool, was formerly a Sheffield United forward who had been loaned to Watford, with the deal then made permanent. Before Sheffield United and Watford met on April 28, 2007, Warnock, and match preview articles published on both official club websites, stated that Kabba could not feature because of an agreement as part of his transfer.

Kabba had played in 14 of the previous 15 matches for Watford and all of the previous eight. Any arrangement regarding his deselection would be illegal and a case of third-party interference. When the statements about Kabba were brought to the attention of the Premier League, it launched an investigation and Watford provided contract details showing that no pact had been put in writing. “There may be gentlemen's agreements between managers that, in fairness, clubs know nothing about,” McCabe said.

Yet Warnock was quoted in a local newspaper confirming that he had checked the issue and had been told that Kabba could not play, so it was not the manager's work. The most plausible explanation, therefore, is that a private deal was struck between clubs. To believe otherwise is to accept that an official information outlet of Sheffield United would carry false information uncorrected for several months, coincidentally replicated at Watford. Kabba-less, Watford lost 1-0.

And here is the rub. Who is to say that those three points for Sheffield United were any more, or less, significant than any match won by West Ham, with or without Tévez? And if West Ham could countersue, hire private investigators and subpoena everyone involved in the Kabba transfer to get to the bottom of it, would football have to peer deep into the brilliant mind of Griffiths and friends so that they could replay that match, too?

We all think that Tévez was a huge player for West Ham that season, but we cannot know for sure. We cannot faithfully evaluate his goals against the saves of Robert Green or the performances of Matthew Upson in central defence. Certainly, he cannot be held responsible for Sheffield United losing at home to Wigan Athletic on the final day of the season or Warnock's understrength team against Manchester United.

Yet we can begin to estimate the cost to football of Griffiths's foolish precedent. Right now, this is a row about money between two groups of very rich men, vainly dressed up as a fight between right and wrong. But where it goes from here cuts to the heart of Saturday afternoons, a time of the week that will increasingly cease to be of significance to football supporters - for, as we know, lawyers do not work on Saturdays.

During West Hams awful injury stricken season last year I stumbled upon an excellent website. I will post the URL here as many posters may want to consult it at some time or another. I think the website is updated every day so you can be right on the money when someone asks you "what's happened to that little Croatian bloke that used to play for Arsenal?"

It lists every Premiership team, the injured players, the injury and in most cases expected date of return. For the budding Physio's among you it also gives detailed explanations of the injury, symptoms and suggested treatments. I often like to play Doctors and Nurses as I'm sure we all do. Find your girlfriends painful area with this handy reference and then cure it with your magic fingers.

I'm glad to say that at the current moment only one West Ham player is on the list. When I looked at it at the tail end of last season we were top of the table with 12 players out injured.

http://www.physioroom.com/news/english_premier
_league/epl_injury_table.php

It's all daHammers fault so blame him. Apparently from the hundreds of West Ham fans that regularly post on this site, I have won the sweep stakes and will write my thoughts for WHU's up-coming season. So in 500 words or less I will do that and you will see why I have never won any 'in 500 words or less' competitions.

Well anyway this isn't actually it. I will wait until closer to the deadline of 1st August as anything could happen between now and then. What happens if Kaka joins us in late July? I'll have wasted a lot of everyone's time and will have to re-write everything.

However as lots will be happening between now and the big kick off and I will lose or forget most of it I will make a start on this blog. A reference for me if nothing else. I will also not bother much with rumors, Fox can do that for me. These are hard and direct facts only, stolen from many credible sources.

To start with things look good on the West Ham injury curse front. From what I can gather everyone is back training apart from Davenport who broke his neck. Take note Drogba, thats a broken neck not a broken eyelash. Even Davenport will be back this year though apparently.

According to WHU's official website pre-season training started on 3/7 at the Chadwell Heath training ground and included men that haven't been seen for months. Reportedly running around like footballers were Lucas Neill, Lee Bowyer, Carlton Cole, George McCartney, Matthew Etherington, Craig Bellamy, Matthew Upson, Julien Faubert, Kieron Dyer and James Collins. Wow.

It almost passed me by but there is a European Under-19 Championship in the Czech Republic about to start between 14-26 July. Amazingly, England qualified for this one. West Ham stars to be, Freddie Sears and James Tomkins have been confirmed in England's 18-man squad.

In Group B of the eight-nation tournament, England will take on hosts Czech Republic on the 14th, Italy on 17th and Greece on 20th July. 

Group A - Spain, Germany, Bulgaria and Hungary.

Not much has happened on the transfer side:

IN: Holmar Orn Eyjolfsson (HK Kopavogur, nominal)

OUT: Nolberto Solano (released).

Yes that's THE Holmar Orn Eyjolfsson, World famous Iceland U17 star who plays at centre back when he isn't eating ice cream. Nominal means we don't want to publicly embarrass the lad by telling the World we got change from a £50 note.

And last but not least our pre-season friendly schedule. Very interesting for Americans as we play the "Crew" and MLS Allstars. Not sure who the 'Crew' are but they sound pretty damn scary. Hopefully some of you might catch a glimpse of our quality players....

July 17 - Hampton & Richmond (a).

July 20 - Columbus Crew (a).

July 24 - MLS Allstars (Toronto).

July 29 - Peterborough Utd (a).

 

July 30 - Cambridge Utd (a).

Aug 1 - Southampton (a)

Aug 4 - Ipswich Town (a)

Aug 9 - Villarreal (h)

Until next weeks exciting installment, laters.....