Pound of flesh - £30 million

Yes I know this is wearily predictable, but I can't resist the temptation. Today's news that an independent tribunal has ruled against West Ham, and for Sheffield United, in the Carlos Tevez affair is laughable. I mean, I'm not laughing, but you get my point.

The crux of my nub is this statement, published in the Daily Mail today:
"On the totality of the evidence, we have no doubt that West Ham would have secured at least three fewer points over the 2006/07 season if Carlos Tevez had not been playing for the club."

Oh yeah? Let's look at the evidence, shall we?

Tevez played well towards the end of the season - really well. He famously scored the only goal of our last game of the season at Old Trafford, and I almost wish he hadn't. That game was won through a heroic effort by every member of our team, but the only fact that registers with the tribunal members is
Man Utd 0 - 1 West Ham (Teves)
That's three points right there, and proof of our guilt.

Never mind that the arrival of Teves and Mascherano was accompanied by absolute chaos, a double signing that took even our manager, Alan Pardew by surprise. Fitting them into the side was an immediate problem, which Pardew solved by  leaving Mascherano on the bench. Results were poor, despite these two undeniably brilliant players in the squad, and eventually Pardew paid with his job.

At this point, how many points had Tevez gained West Ham? To make any kind of intelligent judgment, you have to consider how many points we might have had without him. The previous season, we finished ninth and reached the FA Cup final, qualifying for Europe. So why were we suddenly stuck in the relegation zone?

If any part of our struggles was connected with the arrival of Tevez and Mascherano - and the associated stress and controversy - then thos players actually cost West Ham points.

This may sound like a fatuous point - a one-eyed fan trying to wriggle out of a moral pinch - but it's actually a relatively sophisticated argument. The truth is, the amount of points that one player gains for his team is completely unknowable.

The problem is, the members of the tribunal don't seem to be capable of a sophisticated judgment. And why not?

Because the members of the board were:
Robert Englehart QC, an expert in sport law, but with no apparent knowledge of football
Lord Griffiths, former MCC president and keen golfer
Sir Anthony Colman, former high court judge with no connection to sport of any kind

Let's not have people like this making decisions about the game, OK? Yes, they can argue the legal points, but no, they cannot tell how many points West Ham would have ended the season with if they hadn't signed Carlos Tevez.

Nobody can know that, and it would take an extremely arrogant group of men to think - despite an unplumbable depth of ignorance of the game - that they could.

Douglas Carter