League back Hammers ruling

The Premier League are confident they followed their own regulations to the letter in prosecuting West Ham over the signings of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.

West Ham were found guilty of two charges by an independent commission last Thursday and fined a record £5.5m but, crucially, they avoided a potential points deduction for irregularities relating to the transfers.

That decision ensured West Ham still have a chance of Premiership survival with two games of the season remaining.

But it has come in for criticism from the Hammers’ relegation rivals and suggestions of a legal challenge against the verdict are growing.

The Premier League, however, remain happy with their own processes, in laying the charges against West Ham once the alleged breaches came to light and then appointing an independent three-man panel to run the hearing.

The commission, chaired by Simon Bourne-Arton QC, was then free to hand down any penalty it felt proportionate and appropriate as there is no recommended sanction contained within the regulations, nor has there been a precedent to the charges West Ham faced.

The Premier League are understood to be privately satisfied with the commission’s final judgement.

But if West Ham succeed in staying up, sports lawyer Mel Goldberg believes the relegated clubs could have grounds to mount a legal challenge.

One of the commission’s seven explanations for levying a huge fine but no points sanction was that it would have condemned West Ham to certain relegation.

However, the ruling added that a different decision may well have been taken if the hearing had been in January because a points deduction with four months of the season remaining “would have been somewhat easier to bear”.

The panel also decided a points deduction, and therefore guaranteed relegation, would undermine the “loyalty” West Ham’s fans and players had shown over the previous four months as the club battled for Premiership survival.

Goldberg told PA Sport: “I do believe that, if a club goes down by a point or two, those relegated clubs would have a decent claim.

“It seems part of the decision has been attributed to the fact that it is near the end of the season and they didn’t want to upset the supporters.

“That seems to be irrelevant. If West Ham were playing players who were not properly registered, there have been precedents of other teams being dropped points. The rules should be the same.

“They could possibly ask for money as compensation if they argue they were not being treated fairly.”

There has never been an issue with the registration of Tevez and Mascherano, but over the contracts West Ham originally negotiated with the players’ part-owner Kia Joorabchian.

West Ham were found to have been so desperate to tie up the deal before the transfer window closed last August that they agreed to contracts containing third party clauses that the Premier League “in all probability would not have approved of”.

A third party agreement reached with Joorabchian has now been terminated by the Hammers, which freed Tevez to play against Wigan last weekend and for the remainder of the season.

West Ham are in talks with Joorabchian over a new contractual arrangement regarding Tevez’s future “beyond the end of the season”.

The Hammers could buy Tevez outright, which would cost them around £20million, or strike a similar loan deal that Mascherano has at Liverpool.

If there is a change to the status quo, any new arrangement must meet the Premier League’s satisfaction by noon on Friday for Tevez to play against Bolton on Saturday.