Announcement

**Imran Siddiqui** · May 17, 2007, 10:51

Its part of World Football

.

**MOBIUS** · May 17, 2007, 10:53

Colon is NOT Imran's gay lover, honest!

**Cort Haus** · May 17, 2007, 13:20

Colon for starting this thread.

Personally, I can't be arsed to get too opinionated about this, but I've received an email from a mate who's a Birmingham fan - from one of their forums. So, these aren't my opinions, I'm just throwing them in there ....

From page 20
That being the basis upon which we will proceed, what then is the appropriate penalty? In determining that, we have taken into account and given West Ham credit for the pleas of guilty and we have taken into account their hitherto exemplary disciplinary record.

Even though the whole of pages 18&19 are listing where the "independant" panel believes West Ham officials, have lied to them when giving evidence, and they follow one sentence later with.......

in our finding the club has been responsible for dishonesty and deceit.

Re: The penalty imposed
The Rules of the FAPL allow us to penalise a club by deducting points. That is a course that we consider would normally follow from such a breach of these Rules

Re:Why not points
We have taken the following factors into account:
One, the club's pleas of guilty.

How do you get credit for a guilty plea when all of your pleaded mitigation is denounced as lies?

Two, the fact that the club is under new ownership
and management. True it is that Mr Duxbury remains, but
we are impressed by Mr Sturman's point that Mr Magnusson
could have cynically dispensed with his services so as
to reflect more favourably upon the club.

What has new ownership got to do with anything? And, by NOT sacking one of the people responsible, they get credit for being not cynical? Joke.

Three, had the club in time made disclosure of the
third party contracts to the FAPL, then, in all
probability, contracts could have been entered into
which would not have offended the Rules.

So they get credit for not making the disclosure on the basis that they wouldn't have been able to register the players if they'd disclosed? Getting surreal now.

Four, there has been a delay between the discovery
of these breaches and these proceedings. Whilst that
delay is due to no party's fault, the consequence is
that a points deduction, say in January, whilst
unwelcome, would have been somewhat easier to bear than
a points deduction today which would have consigned the
club to certain relegation.

So because the Premier League couldn't get off their arses and deal with it, the guilty club gets a lighter punishment. Past surreal now, now we're going to the ridiculous.

Five, Tevez has continued to play for the club after
the discovery of these breaches. The FAPL had the power
to have then terminated his registration.

So, because they have continued to play a player who is not registered correctly, and because the premier league failed to act promptly, they get credit for that too.

Six, we have considered the position of the players
and the fans. They are in no way to blame for this
situation. Of course, if the impact upon players and
fans was to be the overriding consideration, there may
never be a deduction of points. However, in this case,
the fans and the players have been fighting against
relegation. They have been doing so from between
January and April. They have been so doing against the
ever-present threat of a deduction of points. Those
efforts and that loyalty would be to no avail were we to
now, on what might be termed the eve of the end of the
season, to deduct points.

So now it's officiall, you're not allowed to upset West Ham fans, you couldn't make it up.

Seven, it was Mr Igoe, thus the club, then under new
ownership, who brought attention to these breaches.

Ah right, so you abuse the rules, lie to the disciplinary bodies, but then confess, then lie again to the disciplinary body, and they give you credit for that. If only Harold Shipman had thought of that, he'd have been out by now instead of dead.

And it still gets more ludicrous........

Thus we do not order any deduction of points
We have, however, noted the following financial
(a) that the club have had the advantage of having
the playing services of two international footballers
without the payment of any transfer fee. Whatever their
value, and we do not proceed upon those figures in the
penalty clauses, it would not have been insignificant.
The players signed respectively four and five year
contracts.

So, we have players valued conservatively at £35million the pair, but they think a £5.5M penaly is about right

(b) had we deducted points, West Ham would have
certainly been relegated and thus have no chance of
securing the lucrative benefits of continued Membership
of the Premier League.

So? If a benefit cheat is stopped from claiming, he no longer has the benefit of free prescriptions, should we change that? Again, ludicrous IMO.

(c) even if they are to be relegated, they will
receive what is termed a parachute payment in the sum of
£11.5 million.

Ok, so, IF they're relegated they'll still get loads of wonga, so it's not fair to relegate them. I think someone needs to explain that part to me as it's too far fetched even for me to comment on.

(d) the club were prepared to pay a considerable sum
to an agent as a reward for securing these deals.

So if they hadn't paid an agent a load of money, they'd have been more likely to have points deducted? How's that work then?

I honestly cannot believe some of the stuff I've just read in that judgement.

The Arsenal Forum I post in is down for a server migration atm, but when it's back I'll post a little poll.

**Cort Haus** · May 17, 2007, 13:28

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Kindly look up 'dishonesty and deceit', if I said "I am wearing black briefs", would I not be guilty of dishonesty and deceit when it was subsequently found out the were actually blue - and shock of shocks! BOXERS!!!

I hardly think I deserve a points deduction for spreading such heinous lies!

I think it's fair to say that the life-and-death struggle for relegation is a little more important to rather more people than one persons underwear.

**MOBIUS** · May 17, 2007, 16:35

I'm still guilty of dishonesty and deceit though.

Interesting that the one sided take of the report from the Birmingham site misses out whole massive sections in such a way to allow this poster to fabricate the report to support his or her arguments...

Here is the report in its fullness:

http://www.premierleague.com/public/downloads/publications/PL270407final.txt

You take your own opinion from it. I have mine. In fact remember that a month before the report came out, A BBC report (Mike Sewell) said any possible punishment would be proportionate. A maximum of three points and a fine. It may be a six-figure fine.

So, if the maximum is a points deduction and the minimum is a six-figure fine - then £5.5m seems somewhere in between...

This verdict was no shocking surprise - it's just in the intervening month West Ham went from dead in the water to surviving relegation, and certain selfish parties are now clutching at straws when before they said nothing about it...

**Cort Haus** · May 17, 2007, 16:42

Who's Mr Gay?

**MOBIUS** · May 17, 2007, 16:47

One of the PC Mr Men in the new series obviously.

**Cort Haus** · May 18, 2007, 08:08

Another view.

Let’s all laugh at the weeping fans
Whisper it: watching other people’s relegation misery is great fun. And this year’s final-day deciders didn't disappoint.
Duleep Allirajah

spiked - humanity is underrated

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3377/

The political magazine that wants to change the world as well as report on it. For humanism, democracy and freedom.

Whisper it, but watching other people’s relegation misery is great fun. Of course, it’s the worst anguish imaginable when it’s your team that’s going down, worse still if you get relegated on the last day of the season. I speak here as a ‘relegation survivor’ who has endured so many Crystal Palace demotions I’ve lost count. Been there, done that, though I didn’t buy the t-shirt (I’m talking here about the risible ‘Operation Ewood’ t-shirts worn by Charlton fans, 7,500 of whom were bussed up to Blackburn on free coaches only to see their team lose 4-1. Priceless.)

But even a serial relegation sufferer like me is still able to take pleasure at someone else’s misfortune. I had a quiet little chuckle to myself when Spurs finally sealed Charlton’s fate. Not too raucous, mind; I wouldn’t want anyone to think that we Palace fans actually hate them. Charlton is a small, inoffensive, prudently managed ‘family club’ which has been punching above its weight for the last few years but is now finding its true level again. What’s not to admire about these plucky underdogs?

Charlton’s demise was amusing but a mere appetiser ahead of last Sunday’s blockbuster relegation drama. The final day of the season saw West Ham, Wigan and Sheffield United all battling to avoid the third relegation place. With the race for the remaining UEFA Cup places somewhat less interesting than watching paint dry, the relegation contenders were given top billing on BBC’s Match of the Day. What we wanted to see was the ecstasy and agony of the relegation dogfight played out on TV. We wanted drama, passion, tension, desperation. But most of all we wanted to see tears.

What is it that’s so appealing about these relegation deciders? Part of the reason is good old-fashioned schadenfreude - laughing at other people’s misfortune – which is a fine old football tradition. Even if you have no enmity towards the relegation candidates, you can still have a laugh at some fat bloke in a replica shirt weeping like a baby. Terrace tears are a relatively modern phenomenon. In the past, British men would not have blubbed in public but Gazza’s tears in 1990 helped change all that. Now, levels of public lachrymosity have risen to such an extent that the weeping fan shot has become a staple of sports broadcasting.

The lingering close-up shot of a tearful supporter is, I guess, intended as the perfect visual articulation of soccer heartbreak. It’s supposed to be moving and poignant. But somehow we can’t help finding it funny. Why is that? Why, instead of feeling weepy at fat bloke’s pain, do we piss ourselves laughing instead? Is it that we are now addicted to ghoulish ‘car crash’ television? Have we become a nation of voyeuristic rubberneckers who derive perverse pleasure from other people’s grief?

Actually, I think that laughing at weeping fans is a positive phenomenon. It shows that we haven’t completely bought into the emotionally correct orthodoxy with its new rituals of public mourning. It also indicates that some of us still retain a sense of perspective. We know that, despite football’s inflated cultural significance, relegation isn’t a real tragedy. Tim Parks, author of A Season with Verona, wrote that football ‘offers a new and fiercely ironic way of forming community and engaging with the sacred’. In other words, devotion to a football team may have filled the void vacated by religious faith but, at the same time, we realise that worshipping a football team is rather ludicrous, that football is, after all, only a game.

This year’s final day relegation deciders didn’t disappoint. The dramatic tension was utterly excruciating. In the end West Ham pulled off the Great Escape by beating Manchester United 1-0 at Old Trafford, while Wigan won 2-1 at Bramall Lane to send Sheffield United down. Wigan and West Ham celebrated as though they’d won the league while grown men in the red and white of Sheffield United colours wept like little girls.

The final day drama was, however, rather spoilt by the moaning of chippy club chairmen and sanctimonious sports writers. All because West Ham had breached some obscure rule that nobody had heard of before but is now regarded as a sacred law. The Hammers were found guilty of contravening rule U18 which governs third-party ownership of players when they signed Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. They also misled the league officials about the true nature of the two Argentine players’ contracts.
The club was handed a record £5.5million fine but the FA’s decision not to deduct any points has provoked an almighty furore. Sheffield United are leading the campaign for West Ham to be docked points and have initiated legal action. Sheffield MP Clive Betts has even tabled an early day motion in parliament declaring that the FA’s decision undermines the very integrity of the Premier League. It all sounds like sour grapes dressed up as high moral principles to me.

Now, whether the punishment was too lenient is open to debate. But let’s get one thing straight, Sheffield United were not relegated because of West Ham’s deceit or the FA’s leniency. They went down because they weren’t good enough for the Premier League. At one point there was a 10-point gap between the Blades and the drop zone but they contrived to blow it. They picked up only one point from their last six away games. Even then, United only needed a point from their final game to stay up but they fluffed their lines. In other words they have only themselves to blame.

You’ve cocked it up. You’ve gone down. Get over it. Now please stop bleating and allow us to mock your weeping fans in peace.

**Maquiladora** · May 18, 2007, 10:42

Another view? Seems like he's firmly on WH's side to me.

How about waiting for the final verdict, and stop being such a mardy ***** about it.

**Cort Haus** · May 18, 2007, 11:16

Originally posted by Maquiladora
Another view? Seems like he's firmly on WH's side to me.

Yep, but the previous view I posted - from a footy forum - was against WH. Balance, you see.

Results of a quick 'Should points have been deducted' poll amongst some gooners (20 replies):

1. Yes, the cheating bastards. 10 / 50%
2. No, the losers should stop whining. 3 / 15%
3. Whatever 7 / 35%

This is from local rivals, so one would not expect a pro-WH response. The high % of dont-cares is significant.

**reds4ever** · May 18, 2007, 17:39

Originally posted by MOBIUS

So, if the maximum is a points deduction and the minimum is a six-figure fine - then £5.5m seems somewhere in between...

Given that 3 points deduction would have cost the Hammers ~£30M, I don't think that 0 points and £5.5M is anywhere near inbetween?

**C0ckney** · June 7, 2007, 07:51

it's also worth remembering that this year AFC wimbledon (who play in the ryman premier), were deducted 3 points for fielding an ineligible player. bury (league 2) were simply thrown out of the FA cup for the same reason.

punishments should be consistent, it shouldn't be one rule for the big clubs and another for the rest.

**MOBIUS** · June 12, 2007, 09:24

Notice how this story has sunk without a trace, just like Sheffield Utd...

**reds4ever** · June 12, 2007, 09:31

I thought the case was coming up this week?

Edit: 18th June

Announcement

West Ham United and the Tevez-case

West Ham United and the Tevez-case

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment