If West Ham thought they had finally settled the Carlos Tévez affair with an out-of-court settlement to pay £25m to Sheffield United, they were sadly mistaken. Numerous individuals have jumped on the compensation bandwagon, including one of the most controversial figures in football, Ken Bates. In a statement West Ham said that it was becoming evident that the arbitration panel’s ruling ‘has encouraged a potentially endless legal chain of claims and counter claims which can only be damaging to English football.
If West Ham thought they had finally settled the Carlos Tévez affair with an out-of-court settlement to pay £25m to Sheffield United, they were sadly mistaken. Numerous individuals have jumped on the compensation bandwagon, including one of the most controversial figures in football, Ken Bates. In a statement West Ham said that it was becoming evident that the arbitration panel’s ruling ‘has encouraged a potentially endless legal chain of claims and counter claims which can only be damaging to English football. We will strongly resist any attempts to prolong the matter through the courts to protect our interests and those of the wider game. There is a lot more at stake than the finances of West Ham and we will do all we can to stop this matter ending in a form of legal anarchy.’ Of course, West Ham’s attempt to take the high moral ground has to be offset against the conduct that got them into this mess in the first place. If the original arbitration panel had not bottled the issue by awarding a fine rather than a points deduction the current situation would not have arisen. However, the legal genie is now out of the bottle.
About 20 of the Sheffield United squad at the time of relegation are seeking compensation of between £4m and £5m for loss of wages and bonuses. A Premiership player might expect a bonus of about £100,000 to £150,000 for helping his team to avoid relegation. Players in the top flight usually earn in excess of £20,000 a week whereas they might expect to earn up to £12,000 a week in the Coca Cola Championship. Neil Warnock, who was manager of Sheffield United at the time, has sought legal advice about a claim. He maintains that he would have still have been at the club if he had not been relegated. Quite how a court is expected to estimate the likelihood of this being the case is unclear. It could give a new meaning to the term ‘expert witness’. And, even if they found that Warnock would still be in a post, how would a court estimate how much of a demotion managing Crystal Palace represented? After all, they are also a Championship side with promotion ambitions. To complicate the picture still further, Wigan Athletic and Fulham have pledged to continue their fight for compensation after missing out on prize money they would have received if West Ham had finished below them.
Drama starts to approach farce with the intervention of Ken Bates. The Leeds United chairman has sought legal advice about a claim for a loss in payments that his club would have received from the Blades. The money, which is thought to be about £500,000, is based on contingency payments written into the contracts of three players that Leeds had sold to their Yorkshire rivals. The clauses would have been invoked had Sheffield United avoided relegation from the top flight in 2007. Other clubs might have similar claims, but Mr Bates stated, ‘Ours is the biggest claim and it would be nice to collect that and strengthen our club.’ Indeed it would be and Mr Bates may well have a case. However, one just wonders where this is going to end both in terms of West Ham’s finances and precedents that have been created for football in general.