West Ham and Sheffield United reached an out-of-court settlement over the long-running Carlos Tevez affair on this day in 2009.
The Blades had demanded compensation of up to £45million following their relegation from the Premier League in 2007 – a demotion they insisted would not have occurred had Tevez not excelled for the London club.
West Ham had breached rules over third-party ownership when signing Tevez and his fellow Argentina international Javier Mascherano the previous summer.
The pair had arrived at Upton Park in a surprise, headline-grabbing move from Brazilian club Corinthians but it later emerged the rights to the players were partially owned by their agent Kia Joorabchian’s company, Media Sports Investment.
This contravened Premier League regulations and the club were fined a record £5.5million.
This did not go far enough for some clubs, however, who felt the relegation-threatened Hammers should have been deducted points.
The Blades went on to pursue their own claim after it was they, and not West Ham, who went down after a dramatic battle for survival went down to the wire.
Exacerbating the issue for them was the fact that Tevez was outstanding. After a quiet start to the season, the forward burst into life in the run-in. He scored seven goals in the Hammers’ final 10 games of the campaign, including the winner at Manchester United on the last day of the season to clinch survival.
The Yorkshire club were relegated after losing 1-0 to Wigan in their concluding game, a result which – just to add to the theatre – ensured Latics stayed up.
Two years of legal wrangling followed as the Blades sought some form of redress. Final details of the settlement were not revealed at the time but Sheffield United reportedly received a sum of around £20million. This was way below their initial demand but they declared it a “satisfactory settlement”.
“For everyone concerned, the time was right to draw a line under this whole episode,” the clubs said in a joint statement.
