Football Focus

[david_carnell]

To go back to the lawyer West Ham are going to need, surely:

http://www.xenix.ch/_img/1_programm/movie/1077.jpg

But back to the football. Aresenal were imperious last night. The commentators on 5live ran out of superlatives. No wonder Wenger never buys anyone these days. He can just bide his time.

And as a Leeds fan:

a) Through to the next round after beating Jeff "Hartlepool" Stelling last night. Give us a big team at home in the next round please. Except Arsenal.

b) As much as it pains me to say it, my sympathies do rest with the Blades on the whole Tevez issue. But it'll never go anywhere.

[mockney piers]

We did a wrong un and we were fined.

Maybe we should have been docked points, maybe not, but if you're going to get compensation from anyone for that decision go to the FA, don't blame west ham.

And to say that Tevez kept us up is absolutely ridiculous and an insult to the rest of the team, Green's excellent goalkeeping for instance; especially as the blades happily managed to bag 3 points off a west ham team with Tevez in it.

I'm bored of the whole thing so I'll shut up, we've had a fire sale in preparation for this, which obviously if we go down as a result of, I think a counter-compensation suit may be in the offing...ad infinitum....

[ratty]

Who would you rather have in the Premiership?

West Ham or Sheff Utd?

Sorry blades! No contest!

Should have won more games when you had the chance!

[SimonM]

I confidently expect a Rotherham v Leeds tie to emerge from the draw! A battle between the two points-deduction giants, so clearly an all-northern tie :))

Rotherham of course are now the only Sheffield side (their home ground this season is the Don Valley Stadium) left in the competition.

Noone will want Arsenal! My heart sank the moment I saw the 3rd Round draw, but 6-0 is a bit much: more goals shipped last night than in 7 league games this season. What a magician of a manager Wenger is...

[Jah Lush]

I remember writing a little something on here last year about Peter Scudamore during the Tevez - West Ham/Sheffield Utd affair and today I've taken this article from today's Daily Mirror as I think it's worth reprinting here and pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole sorry affair and him in particular.

Opinion: Premier League chief Richard Scudamore must resign over Carlos Tevez farce

By Oliver Holt 24/09/2008

So Sheffield United will get some money as a belated apology for the injustice that was visited upon them.

And West Ham, who have already been fined once for the sins of a previous regime, will be fined again.

But the real culprit, the man who presided over this shameful episode in English football history, will get away scot free.

Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore was swanning around Valhalla at the weekend like a man without a care in the world.

But if he had any dignity, he would resign today over the decision no fan independent tribunal to rule against West Ham in the Carlos Tevez affair and order them to pay compensation to the Blades.

The decision is an indictment of everything Scudamore has let the Premier League become.

It's a damning comment on the way the league under his stewardship has slid rapidly into something approaching anarchy, a crazed free-for-all where money does all the talking.

It's a blessed condemnation of Scudamore's gut - wrenching subservience to men like former Manchester City owner Thaks in Shinawatra, who have dragged the reputation of English football into the gutter.

Shinawatra is a fugitive from the law now but Scudamore ignored all the warnings about him when he first took over at Eastlands and buddied up to him as best he could.

The Premier League boss might be a bright negotiator but he has also revealed himself as spectacularly gullible. His organisation misjudged the West Ham situation by trusting them over the registration of Tevez when they should have been all over the case like forensic scientists.

Scudamore misjudged Shinawatra, too, aggressively defending him when there were plenty of people pointing out that his human rights record in Thailand left a lot to be desired.

He misjudged public reaction to his desperation to wring even more money out of English football with plans to prostitute it around the world for a farcical 39th game that would have destroyed the integrity of the Premier League.

And he misjudged the mood of a nation that is growing increasingly concerned at the way he is presiding over the colonisation of our football by the world's super rich.

This isn't the first time I've called for Scudamore to resign and, if his recent track record of colossal mismanagement is anything to go by, it probably won't be the last.

But Scudamore doesn't do accountability. Not unless it's to one of the billionaire Premier League owners who wave their wads in his face and watch him scurry to do their bidding.

Still, it's worth remembering for a moment just hows cathing, patronising and downright bloody arrogant he was when he ridiculed Sheffield United's chances of winning some sort of redress after their relegation from the Premier League in May 2007.

Looking back on it now, Scudamore's attitude to the club's protests and his scorn for their plight was the first sign that he was allowing the top tier of English football to become a free-for-all.

It was the moment when a league that many admired for the progress it had made morphed into the Greed is Good League, where money talks, might is right and the little clubs go to the wall.

It was the moment when Scudamore lost his golden touch, when eagerness to serve his masters' greed blurred his vision of right and wrong in football.

Yesterday's tribunal decision should have been all the confirmation needed that Scudamore has become a liability and an embarrassment.

But the Premier League has no shame any more and Scudamore has got fresh billionaire flesh to press and new millions to make.

Scudamore has become a liability and an embarrassment. But the Premier League has no shame any more.

[SimonM]

As Neil Warnock has also called for Scudamore to resign I suppose there is zero chance of this happening...

[Jah Lush]

One can only live in hope.

Anyway, Newcastle v Tottenham tonight. Should be good for laugh. Depends who you support though.

[mockney piers]

clearly an itch I can't stop scratching.

Football, rather than West Ham, is the loser

[SimonM]

That article is quite disgraceful and totally unworthy of what used to be a quality newspaper. The "journalist" seems to be aiming his buckshot wildly at any or every target he can think of, including several red herrings, if I might wildly mix the metaphor. Of course Tony Cascarino writing in the same newspaper was quite enethusiastic in his support of the decision reached by the three-man, independent commission, which is about par for the course for the Press these days - something for everyone!

Had to laugh at the implication that Steve Kabba is another Carlos Tevez though....

[mockney piers]

I'll let you have shooting red herrings in a barrel, it works.

Regardless of journalistic quality it still stands for me that, as I said before, it was a ridiculous decision that essentially denigrates the contribution of the rest of the team across a whole season and that the whole saga from the initial speculation, to their dodgy signing, to Mascherano's malign influence unsettling the team (and I was saying that loooong before the winning streak) and caused such a bad run that put us in the relegation fight.

I say it again, blame the FA, but to grant compensation on the perceived influence of one player (who was present for 8 straight defeats) is poppycock.

[Jah Lush]

People do tend to ignore the fact that Carlos Tevez played in eight straight defeats and is only remembered in this dispute because he scored the winner at Man Utd on the last day of the season that enabled West Ham to stay up.

[Sandperson]

I'm bound to be wrong here but I may as well wade in. Is this fine (and I believe there is no way that that sort of money will change hands and I think the whole thing will disappear in quiet farce) awarded on the basis of the fact the Tevez shouldn't have been playing, not that he had an undue influence on the outcome of the relgation battle?

I thought they were treating it like playing an inelligble player or having an extra player on the pitch i.e. it's not the player themselves but the unfiar advantage gained. Is this not the legal equivalent of the player interferring with play in an offside decision?

[mockney piers]

The fine for the infraction was a record breaking 5 million. This is the compensation due to Sheffield Utd due to an ineligible Tevez (though FA gave him permission to play those last games) being the difference between their Premiership survival and relegation, ?30 million being the perceived loss of earnings as a result of the latter (McCabe was after ?50m).

[Sandperson]

As far as I can tell (I understand the fines, althought I think they are unfair) it's yet another f**k up by an ever more inept Premier league. As was said before SU should have won more games if they wanted to avoid relegation.

[mockney piers]

You could argue the lack of pionts deduction was a premiership f**k up, this was a f**k up by a three man independent tribunal.

[david_carnell]

I'm double posting this (forgive me Admin for I have sinned) here and in the "Things to make you laugh" thread due to it's relevence there but this is great:

The Fuhrer is a Sheffield United fan

[Jah Lush]

I've seen that so many times and it still makes me laugh.

[mockney piers]

Related videos are a bit disturbing, I didn't think NSFW stuff got on to youtube.

But very funny.

[SimonM]

The so-called "record-breaking" fine of ?5.5million imposed on West Ham was of course as meaningful as fining Man Utd ?25000 for having 6 players yellow-carded in one game - which is to say no punishment at all given the context. It is true we would not have been relegated had we drawn and not lost that final game against Wigan. But had that come to pass then it would have been Wigan seeking and presumably being awarded the compensation: and if not Wigan then Fulham or whoever. It makes no difference to West Ham - this reckoning was always coming.

Sheffield United are entitled to seek compensation because their position is analogous to that of the crime victim sueing the perpetrator for compensation even though the state has already imposed its own punishment by way of a fine or whatever. West Ham agreed to go to arbitration and now refuse to accept the outcome. ?30million sounds a lot but of course given the choice at the end of a season of staying in the Premiership or paying this sum every club would be reaching for its cheque book

And it was not just that last game against Man Utd where Tevez shone and made a diffence - it was severeal goals scored over the last 8 games or so. West Ham are seeking to rewrite history by downplaying how crucial a difference he made and how it was all down to team effort: yeah right.

[SimonM]

So it was Hitler's idea to employ Brian Bleedin' Robson too I suppose dammit.....:))

[mockney piers]

"the so-called "record-breaking" fine of ?5.5million imposed on West Ham was of course as meaningful as fining Man Utd ?25000 for having 6 players yellow-carded in one game"

As a Blades fan you really should know better than to come out with nonsense like that.

We are by no means a wealthy team, though we used to be one of the best at balancing the books, at least prior to the ground expansion followed by the drop. Many of today's high profile players are in other teams thanks to that fire sale; we can't even hold on to the likes of Zamora these days (whom I was genuinely sorry to see go, have a lot of time for the boy).

I actually do have a great deal of sympathy for your position Simon (funny how we take it all so personally 'my team' 'your position'), but that's a little disingenuous.

God knows what's happened to the supposed ?30 million (which isn't a lump sum but a sort of estimate at maintained revenues over the course of a season) but all our ground debt was calculated against maintaining that income prior to our two year premiership hiatus, and I suspect we have very little to show for it bar a slight dent in our debts.

A ?30 million cash payment could easily send us the way of Leeds.

[david_carnell]

Look forward to you visiting League One, Piers.

Come on down, the waters balmy.

[Jah Lush]

You may think as a Spurs fan I could be licking my lips at the prospect of playing away to Portsmouth on Sunday who have shipped ten goals in two games. I'm not. I'm fearing a backlash, especially with the amount of ex-Spurs players in their ranks who may feel they have something to prove.

Just because we've won a couple games recently (but not in the league yet) doesn't mean we're anywhere near out of the shit yet. We have a very long way to go but I'm hoping the win against Newcastle last night will have given us the confidence to improve our form in the Premiership and start moving up the table.

[SimonM]

>>As a Blades fan you really should know better than to come out with nonsense like that.

We are by no means a wealthy team,<<

Sorry I did not mean to imply that WHU was a wealthy club a la Merde Utd. I just meant the ?5.5million fine was merely a slap on the wrists compared to the punishment that had been widely expected to be imposed on the club by almost everyone, and one that could relatively easily be absorbed by the fact of its Premiership membership being preserved.

[Sandperson]

SimonM Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> >>As a Blades fan you really should know better

> than to come out with nonsense like that.

>

> We are by no means a wealthy team,

> Sorry I did not mean to imply that WHU was a

> wealthy club a la Merde Utd. I just meant the

> ?5.5million fine was merely a slap on the wrists

> compared to the punishment that had been widely

> expected to be imposed on the club by almost

> everyone, and one that could relatively easily be

> absorbed by the fact of its Premiership membership

> being preserved.

Simon, I am glad WHU shafted you by playing Tevez.

Yours a 'Merde Utd' fan.