Deadline looming in Tevez transfer saga

A DEAL over the future of Carlos Tevez may have to be settled today or a lengthy court battle will ensue.

Talks between the Argentina striker’s representatives and West Ham broke up tonight without an agreement being reached.

It is understood there is a reasonable chance of a deal being done because after that Tevez’s agent Kia Joorabchian and his company Media Sports Investment (MSI) will have to lodge all their papers with the High Court.

Once that is done, the dispute moves into another phase and court proceedings mean it much more unlikely that a settlement can be reached.

West Ham are asking for a fee of several million pounds to release Tevez from his contract and registration and allow his move to Manchester United to proceed before the season starts.

MSI are claiming they own the player and have lodged a £30million (€44.5m) High Court lawsuit against the Hammers. They claim West Ham should only be paid £100,000 (€148,000), as agreed in a controversial third-party agreement that the club ripped up in April.

The key to achieving a settlement is for the parties to agree a sum that is not only acceptable to both, but also to the Premier League who are keeping a close watch to ensure West Ham do not act as though they are governed by those agreements.

A High Court case is likely to centre on a contract proposed by West Ham chairman Eggert Magnusson in December under which Tevez would cease to be a Hammers player this summer.

West Ham will claim that although they sent MSI this new contract, Tevez and Joorabchian never signed it and returned it to them, and that the club passed this document to the Premier League in February.

MSI will insist they did sign the contract and will provide a copy of a signed document to the court.

West Ham will argue that if that agreement had existed then they would have been cleared of having illegal third-party agreements instead of being fined £5.5m (€8.1m) by an independent disciplinary commission in April.