Thetownend.com

I know most people got a bit "oh shut up who cares" about this a few weeks ago.

But I feel I do have to point out that I WAS RIGHT AND (most of )YOU WERE ALL WRONG!

The transfer was clearly dodgy, the fiddle the PL let them get away with of "cancelling" the third party deal looks like it was bullshit as it seems it's going to be proved in the high court that West Ham still don't own the rights to the player.

The whole thing has got really messy and the FA have got no-one to blame but themselves. They knew at the beginning of last season that something was fishy about those deals and they sat on their hands for months. Then when they were forced to look into it they tried to find some easy fix that didn't make them look like the useless incompetents that they so clearly are.

I hope Sheffield Utd sue the arse of them.

agree completely.west ham got away with it far to lightly

I don't think any one was arguing that the transfer wasn't dodgy. Just that West Ham shouldn't have been deducted points, mainly because of Sheffield Utd awful attitude throughout this whole long and boring gayness.

shut up, who cares

Football is a game, it's not the most important thing in life.  The law courts or the FL/FA boardroom is not a place where promotion and relegation should be decided.

FFS I just wish this whole affair would end - it's so boring.

Rule breakers should be punished (somehow) but for a Swindon Town fan to wish points being deducted or relegation on another team (through a court or FA decision) is just double standards in my opinion.  Unless of course you agreed with our demotion back in 1990.

I think Utd's attitude, which basically amounted to "Hold on are you not even going to stop the cheating bastards playing him for the rest of the season? You must be fucking joking!", was fairly reasonable.

As the little bugger then went on to win 3 or 4 games of the run-in virtually single handed I can understand why they're a bit upset.

I don't accept this "it was in their hands they could have saved themselves" bollocks. Yes they could have picked up a few more points, but then it would have been Wigan threatening to sue instead.

If all the clubs in the league had been given a free hand to bring in a couple of international class ringers then I'm sure no-one would have any complaints. But they weren't. Everyone else stuck to the rules and West Ham cheated.

I think you're totally missing the point here Jan.

Our relegation is EXACTLY WHY I'm fucking livid about this.

As I've said before, we got relegated 2 divisions orignally for fiddling our stated wages for a few players in order to limit their transfer tribunal  fees. By doing that we managed to to pick up Calderwood, Foley and a couple of other lower league cloggers for a few quid cheaper then we would have had to pay otherwise (and save a few quid on tax).

These bastards run a fiddle that allows them to sign  two world cup stars without paying a transfer fee, play those players without fully owning their contracts, lies to the FA and the Premier League about it repeatedly; when they're caught they lie again and say they've cancelled the agreement with Joorabchian, so they can carry on playing Tevez; and they don't get deducted a single point!

How are you not outraged by the double standards of that!

No I wasn't happy at the time we were relegated. It felt like we as fans werre suffering for something we had no control over. BUT IT HAPPENED! The club did wrong, it was punished. I have no problem with that as long as the same standards are applied to everyone else.

It's the fact that they aren't and that big clubs like Spurs and West Ham get away with murder thay pisses me right off.

How can you not get that?

Just because we were shafted up the arse, I don't want to see other club shafted either.  Makes a mockery out of the sport.  We were unfairly punished, which I will always be pissed off about, but that is not a reason to make other clubs go through the same shit as us.

The Steve Kabba situation means that Sheff Utd shouldn't complain about the Tevez situation.

what happend there si?

Sheff Utd put a clause in the transfer deal between themselves and Watford that Kabba couldn't play in the match between the 2 sides. The deal wouldn't have been allowed to go ahead by the PL if they had known the sanction was in place.

Double standards if you ask me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/6767145.stm

Didn't they claim that the agreement was a 'gentlemans agreement' rather than a contractual clause the prevented him from playing, like Tim Howard had between Everton and Utd?

Any team that owns/owned Steve Kabba should be kicked out of the football league imo

agree with village, how that bloke made into the premier league is beyond me, utter gash  

:nono:  - sheff utd and watford, you should be ashamed of yourselves  :wink:

if nothing else the Tevez deal makes an absolute mockery of our league IMHO.

I'm not suggesting West Ham should have had points deducted at the time, but surely now if it's proved they just reneged on a deal without checking, having played him after saying it was all sorted, they should be punished for a second offence.  I can see this from a Sheff Utd fans perspective as not seeming fair to them.  Why couldn't we go out and get Robinho and Ronladinho for free?

I like West Ham, so I would certainly feel for their fans if they had been punished with a points deduction which cost them, but I equally loathe Suprs these days for not being properly dealt with in accordance with the precendence set with us.

With regards to our punishment, I think it was more the process of allowing us to be promoted and then demoted 2 division that seemed a little on the excessive side.  That's like deducting 150 points.  We should never have been alllowed to play in the play offs given what was going to happen, and that would probabyl have been accepted as a punishment (which is sort of how it ended-up but after a period of really making us suffer)

IMHO the punishments also need to be proportional - if circa 1990 we'd been hit with a fine of £5.5m in 1990 money it would have screwed us, we could scarecely affored £5.50, in the West Ham and other cases there is an option - they can actually afford teh fine.

The real problems lies where the PL does the discipline - it's regrettably incomparable with any other case - FL teams are subject to FL rules and prem teams to prem rules, similarly the Bury FA Cup incidnet is FA rules.  We will never know how 'lenient' this sentance was unti antoehr PL clubs breaks the rules.  If the Football league had juristiction over all leagues it would be easier to draw comparison.

I hate West Ham

i like west ham

(like dachauer i need to give no reasoning..but i will. they have pretty colour shirts)

I hate West Ham

I like West Ham

I hate West Ham

I like Go West  :oops:

and ham

I have no opinion on West Ham generally, but this Tevez affair really stinks.

To move this thread back to STFC...

If the rumours about the potential new investors wanting to use STFC to get players in to England to sell on for a profit is true...does anyone think this Tevez business might be reason for the silence from all parties...ie they're waiting for the outcome of this case and if it all goes tits up, they'll hot foot it away...just a random thought...

Cheers

Donkey

Bacon's better than ham though. But Take That will never be better than Go West.

If the fan consortium never gets control of the club can we buy a brewery instead? Failing that I'll be happy with a pig slaughter house. Fresh bacon all round.

We didn't get relegated for what you said above, that information is incorrect  :?

I hate West Ham.

I love things that begin with B

Yes we did, we made approx £100k (at best info) of illegal payments to players.  Generally it was to keep their basic wage down so that we could barter lower values at tribunal and then they got nice brown paper bags after games.  The Directors and Macari got done for tax evasion and the betting on our own side losing is what sparked it all off - that and pissing off someone who was interested in investing/buying the club I think.

Bacon begins with a B so I'm with you on this one....

i told you you were playing hard to get!  :oops:

That's a neat summary. There is also the little matter of how we got the cash to make the brown paper bag payments, by fiddling the gate at home games (every fan going to games at that time must be able to remember people regularly being asked to go through the turnstiles 2 at a time, and the frankly laughable attendance figures that used to be announced). A little scam that mean't we ripped off both the taxman and Thamesdown Borough Council as the rent we paid was based on attendances.

Oh well at least we ripped off the council.  Shame the tax man caught up with us.

why go through 2 turnstiles when the gates were larger than stated not lower?
plus i thought we were relegated due to houses and cars getting offered to players to sign for us,and not being declared?

Gates were larger because 2 people went through at once, not 1 person going through twice. That's how I read it anyway.

ah i see,just got up..dont remember that myself but remember the crowds disbelief at gate announcements.conversations were struck up to guess the real gates

Why say that in past tense? it still goes on now!

Don't think it was as big as offering houses Arriba, "bonuses" was what I was aware of.  I think it was Kingy that said you could tell how well you had played based on the size of the paper bag you got.

When we went to the Lou Macari night he said it was due to the league putting a structure in place that you could only pay a certain bonus and no higher but when the players started doing alot better particularly in a cup run they asked for more money as reward.  Lou thought this was fair as they had increased gates and more money from the cup run so asked the chairman for more.  The chairman (Ray Hardman I think?) gave the players additional bonus outside the structure and someone from inside ended up shopping the club for it.

Brian Hillier, Hardman was in charge when we got promoted properly.

there was certainly mentions on news ect of houses and cars at the time.i cannot remember if they proven or not though. maclaren was one of the players mentioned at the time,cannot remember any of the others