Tevez, Mascherano & West Ham: A Story of TPO

[Topplayersleave]

West Ham wouldn't have gone down with one point fewer.

They'd have had one fewer and we'd have two points more
3 point swing that was mentioned

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

They'd have had one fewer and we'd have two points more
3 point swing that was mentioned

So West Ham still wouldn't have gone down.

So he was wrong.

 

[Barnette]

I still hate West Ham.........cheating southern barstewards

 

[Topplayersleave]

West Ham wouldn't have gone down with one point fewer.

Neither would we, Wigan would

 

[oldblade]

How?

I see what you mean. We would have stayed up. So would West Ham. Unfortunately, Wigan would have gone down as we would make up 3 points but Wigan would only make up 2.

 

[oldblade]

West Ham wouldn't have gone down with one point fewer.

West Ham would have had 2 points fewer. A draw is 1 point. A win is 3 points. But they still wouldn't have gone down as they would have finished 1 point above Wigan. I didn't take account of the fact that Wigan wouldn't benefit from the extra point that we would have got from the draw. My mistake.

 

[oldblade]

So West Ham still wouldn't have gone down.

So he was wrong.

Correct. I was wrong about West Ham going down, but we would have stayed up.

 

[oldblade]

Because it cost us two extra points and gained West Ham one extra point, I think that's what he means

Wrong way round.

It cost us 1 extra point and gave them 2.

But I was still wrong on one half of the equation. West Ham would still have stayed up, but Wigan would have gone down.

 

[Punk Blade]

The thing that most of the dopey West Ham fans won't recognise is that they were fined £5.5 million a month or so before the end of the season and told to rectify the contracts and ownership if they wanted the players to continue to play. Lenient beyond words in the first place, but ok, we could all get on with it.

They then told the PL that they had eliminated the offending ownership and contracts

The PL never asked for evidence of this

West Ham kept playing them under third party ownership, a blatant 2nd offence that was tantamount to outright cheating

Both of them, West Ham and the PL conspired to sweep this under the carpet. The PL believing they'd get relegated and it wouldn't matter anyway, and West Ham because their cheating cockney wankers, same as their spiv fans.

I'm sure at the time of the fine (because a points deduction would have been 'unfair' on West Ham fans) there were three games left to play, and Scudamore said if they were found to be in breach of the same rule again they would face a more severe punishment, which sounds like instant relegation or at least enough points to guarantee relegation.

Tevez was never registered legally for those final three games, in which his goals were worth four of the points they got. West Ham never faced another punishment from the PL, so as far as I'm concerned they still have a points deduction pending. I can't explain why in 12 years it has never been applied, or even mentioned again.

The finger of blame must be pointed squarely at the PL and their colluding with WHU. A referee can't stop players using their hands or kicking each other, nor can he stop 50 players entering the field, but he has punishments at his disposal to deal with players behaving in contradiction with the rules. Just as the PL can't control what shady deals and cheating occurs off the pitch and can't stop unregistered players turning out on match day, but they can apply suitable punishments.

To complete the analogy: imagine a player spending 80 minutes punching his opponents and eventually the referee shows him a yellow card. He then punches the referee and continues to punch his opponents, and the referee does nothing.

 

[benn5712]

A bad do all round. We ended up with the mucky end although I always thought the shammers were pawns in this matter ( no sympathies with em, mind). Testing the waters with this 3rd party ownership lark, both players soon moved to other clubs and had successful careers in Europe.

 

[8lade]

I think we went down because of a ridiculous penalty decision at the start of the season, for 'intent', no contact. Has a penalty ever been given for the same reason before or since?!

That disallowed Geary goal didn't just deny us a point, it ensured West Ham secured an extra two points.

I'll throw in the none penalty at Everton (OK could've been missed but would've been nice to have the chance), ref saw it was a foul but didn't give it because Bromby didn't go down. FFS.

 

[Harrisblade]

The defining issue for us as opposed the season as a whole.

In essence you're agreeing with me. We should've done the business against a bang average Wigan side. Whoever then went down would've been none of our business. I wouldn't be giving two shakes of a lamb's tail if it had then affected Wigan. West Ham's cheating should've only had an impact on the 3rd worse team that season, my point is it shouldn't have been us.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda.
The reality is that it would have made a difference at the END of the season if West Ham had suffered the same punishment as every other team in the world has for playing an ineligible player.

 

[LoughboroBlade]

the strangely disallowed Del Geary goal vs the Cockney fuckers

That disallowed Geary goal didn't just deny us a point, it ensured West Ham secured an extra two points. In other words, a three point swing.

It was actually a disallowed Kozluk goal after well-known physical player Geary was adjudged to have manhandled Rob Green. A ridiculous decision.

 

[alcoblade]

A good video, but when you strip away the emotion, we went down because we couldn’t get a point against Wigan at home. Who were shit. The Tevez affair should’ve been no more that an interesting irrelevancy to us, not the defining issue.

I’ve never understood this viewpoint.

You don’t deserve to get relegated based on one performance.

Yes, that would have saved us. But had West Ham not cheated, we would have stayed up.

I’m sure West Ham (or insert whichever club) had some truly woeful performances that season. Why didn’t that mean they deserved to be relegated?

 

[Nicolaus_Copernicus]

I’ve never understood this viewpoint.

You don’t deserve to get relegated based on one performance.

Yes, that would have saved us. But had West Ham not cheated, we would have stayed up.

I’m sure West Ham (or insert whichever club) had some truly woeful performances that season. Why didn’t that mean they deserved to be relegated?

We played 37 games and were in a position on the last game needing a draw to stay up. Other than the two teams occupying bottom & 2nd from bottom, Wigan were the team you would've chosen. We knew what we had to do before kick off & failed. I'm not saying we 'deserved' to get relegated, but we knew what we had to do to avoid relegation against Wigan. I'd probably see it more of an issue if he had done something directly against us, like winning the game in april at BDTBL. He didn't, and the outcome was in our hands.

As an aside, if I were offered the same situation this season I would take it, knowing the possible consequences. As our last match is against Southampton, history just might repeat itself.

 

[Ginger Gnome]

Tevez was never registered legally for those final three games

He was registered legally though. If he hadn't been they'd have had a points deduction for every single game he played in (non-league teams get them quite often for genuine admin errors). That was a key thing to the whole case, even though West Ham cheated and lied to obtain his registration, he was a registered West Ham player all season. That registration should have been cancelled by the original hearing since it was obtained through cheating, but as it wasn't he remained eligible to play.

At no point did West Ham ever field an illegible player in that season. There was nothing in the rules to state what the penalty should be for the rules they did cheat, which is why all the legal challenges failed except the one about West Ham not acting in good faith to the competition.

Really there should have been a stronger rule for that kind of cheating though, if West Ham had a good season and got a European spot by four points instead, a £5.5m fine or 3 points deduction wouldn't have counted for anything. If you deliberately cheat to get an advantage over the course of the entire season, the rule should have been expulsion, regardless of league position or registrations.

The Premier League being complicit in the cover up after was worse than what West Ham did really. Saying they would take action if any further evidence of third-party ownership remained, but instead negotiating a complete sham of a transfer to Man Utd with West Ham getting a token gesture transfer fee they had no rights to, then being allowed to employ Tevez's agent to pay the money they owed to him. Blatantly corrupt.

 

[Harrisblade]

He was registered legally though. If he hadn't been they'd have had a points deduction for every single game he played in (non-league teams get them quite often for genuine admin errors). That was a key thing to the whole case, even though West Ham cheated and lied to obtain his registration, he was a registered West Ham player all season. That registration should have been cancelled by the original hearing since it was obtained through cheating, but as it wasn't he remained eligible to play.

At no point did West Ham ever field an illegible player in that season. There was nothing in the rules to state what the penalty should be for the rules they did cheat, which is why all the legal challenges failed except the one about West Ham not acting in good faith to the competition.

Really there should have been a stronger rule for that kind of cheating though, if West Ham had a good season and got a European spot by four points instead, a £5.5m fine or 3 points deduction wouldn't have counted for anything. If you deliberately cheat to get an advantage over the course of the entire season, the rule should have been expulsion, regardless of league position or registrations.

The Premier League being complicit in the cover up after was worse than what West Ham did really. Saying they would take action if any further evidence of third-party ownership remained, but instead negotiating a complete sham of a transfer to Man Utd with West Ham getting a token gesture transfer fee they had no rights to, then being allowed to employ Tevez's agent to pay the money they owed to him. Blatantly corrupt.

It depends how you define 'legal'.
Scudamore said that he was registered ok, but the enquiry subsequently stated that had the PL known then that he was on a 3rd party contract theycouldn't have allowed the registration.
Can you imagine any non-league team getting away with that as a defence???

 

[alcoblade]

We played 37 games and were in a position on the last game needing a draw to stay up. Other than the two teams occupying bottom & 2nd from bottom, Wigan were the team you would've chosen. We knew what we had to do before kick off & failed. I'm not saying we 'deserved' to get relegated, but we knew what we had to do to avoid relegation against Wigan. I'd probably see it more of an issue if he had done something directly against us, like winning the game in april at BDTBL. He didn't, and the outcome was in our hands.

As an aside, if I were offered the same situation this season I would take it, knowing the possible consequences. As our last match is against Southampton, history just might repeat itself.

But the suggestion is, if the fixtures were rearranged and we’d fucked up in August, it would have been different.

We were relegated by the narrowest of margins over a team that cheated over the course of a season.

I fail to see how not performing in our last game in any way alters the unfairness of it.

 

[Nicolaus_Copernicus]

But the suggestion is, if the fixtures were rearranged and we’d fucked up in August, it would have been different.

We were relegated by the narrowest of margins over a team that cheated over the course of a season.

I fail to see how not performing in our last game in any way alters the unfairness of it.

Ok, we'll agree to disagree.

 

[Ginger Gnome]

It depends how you define 'legal'.
Scudamore said that he was registered ok, but the enquiry subsequently stated that had the PL known then that he was on a 3rd party contract theycouldn't have allowed the registration.
Can you imagine any non-league team getting away with that as a defence???

The registration itself was valid in legal terms. Obtaining it through deception wasn't legal and the PL were negligent to allow it. Even after the enquiry, unless the PL cancelled the registration it remained vaild. It's a small, but very important point that a lot of our fans ignore when they say West Ham fielded ineligible players. They never did as the PL never invalidated Tevez's registration.

In pure legal terms a non-league side would be able to argue the player was registered just the same. The punishment they'd get for the cheating part wouldn't be so relatively lenient.