Legal challenge looms over Tevez affair

Five clubs are set to mount a legal challenge over the failure to deduct points from West Ham United for breaking Premier League rules, Wigan Athletic chairman Dave Whelan said yesterday.

The move follows West Ham's top-flight survival with a 1-0 win at champions Manchester United on Sunday, just over two weeks after they were only fined for breaching ownership rules with Argentine signings Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.

Whelan told BBC Radio Four: "Charlton, Sheffield United, Wigan, Fulham and Middlesbrough are all determined that we should get justice and that West Ham should have been deducted points.

"Legally, we are being given strong advice that this can be challenged, whatever the Premier League says.

"It can go as far as the House of Lords but the problem there is that it will take too long, next season will be under way.

"We must establish whether this lad (Tevez) was registered in time to play for West Ham and whether they created a new transfer window to sign him."

While West Ham avoided the drop, Sheffield United were sent down on goal difference after losing 2-1 at home to Wigan.

Sheffield United plc chairman Kevin McCabe said: "I think most of the Premier League clubs and indeed other football clubs support this injustice that's come about this season.

"Four years ago, the Blades lost the play-off final and you felt gutted. This time around, I feel cheated. Yesterday's result was not the root cause of our relegation," he told Radio Four.

The BBC reported that two more unnamed clubs had pledged support to the challenge, which is bound to be opposed by the Premier League.

Speaking at last week's Soccerex conference, the league's chief executive Richard Scudamore said: "The rules have been followed and that is the end of the matter."

West Ham were punished because the original contracts of Tevez and Mascherano, who is now at Liverpool, gave certain rights to third-party companies. After the panel's verdict, changes were made that enabled Tevez to keep playing.

The Argentina forward proved key to West Ham's late revival, in which they won seven of their last nine league games, notably scoring Sunday's winner at Old Trafford.