The manager and players of a former Premier League soccer club plan to sue the team they feel caused their relegation from England’s top division by fielding Argentina striker Carlos Tevez.
Tevez, who scored seven goals for former club West Ham United in the last 10 games of the 2006-2007 season, netted in the team’s final game to ensure that the London club moved ahead of Sheffield United in the standings.
Sheffield United reached an out-of-court settlement with West Ham on Monday that seemed to have resolved the long-running dispute, with the Hammers agreeing to pay a staggered compensation package of about US$30 million.
However, about 20 unnamed players are now looking into recovering the bonuses and image rights they would have received by keeping the club in the top flight. Those claims would amount to about £5 million (US$7 million).
Lawyer Chris Farnell, who is acting on behalf of the players, was in correspondence with West Ham’s legal team last week and wants a response by the end of this week.
“We are waiting to hear back from the lawyer at West Ham and, depending on what they have to say, will dictate the next course of action,” Farnell said on Tuesday. “I will be meeting with the majority of players and speaking to all of the players concerned individually before the end of this week, with a view to continuing this matter.”
If West Ham don’t respond “they will leave us with no other option but to pursue the matter formally, most likely through arbitration,” Farnell said.
West Ham said it had received “no formal legal claims” from the players or former Sheffield United manager Neil Warnock, who also said he could pursue a personal compensation claim.
“I’ll be looking into this now. I just wanted to see the club’s case out of the way first,” said Warnock, who is now the manager at Crystal Palace. “As far as I’m concerned, I should still be a Premier League manager. And I think the players have a case, too.”
West Ham, though, said there was “no basis for claims being brought outside of the arbitration process.”
“However, it is now becoming clear that the ruling by Lord Griffiths has encouraged a potentially endless legal chain of claims and counter claims, which can only be damaging to English football,” the club in a statement.
Sheffield United were relegated at the end of the 2007 season when the Hammers beat Manchester United on the final day of the campaign and Tevez scored the decisive goal. However, the Premier League later fined West Ham after ruling that Tevez and Javier Mascherano should not have been eligible to play for the club under third-party ownership rules.
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