It is the story that will not go away, no matter how desperately officials in high places, particularly at West Ham United, want it to. The Carlos Tevez affair was already grumbling in the background at Upton Park, and adding to the club's financial woes, when it burst back on to centre stage with a vengeance yesterday.
When the striker was announced as a transfer deadline-day signing in August 2006, together with his fellow Argentine Javier Mascherano, the ripples of shock could be felt around the game. Nobody, however, could have predicted the trail of mayhem that the deal would create. The trail is now burning with scalding intensity and, as they tried to take stock, West Ham had every reason to be extremely concerned.
The club is in a parlous financial position as it is. The owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson is fighting the meltdown of his assets in Iceland – he is thought to have lost £250m of his fortune – and has put West Ham on the market to pay back the debts that have resulted from the collapse of Landsbanki, in which he held a 41% stake. Creditors are breathing down his neck and it is feared that he might have to sell West Ham quickly to raise the capital to satisfy them. His aides deny this.
West Ham are fighting off the predators during this month's transfer window and they also face a hefty compensation pay-out to Sheffield United, possibly of more than £30m, from the Tevez saga. The decision by the Football Association and Premier League to open a fresh inquiry into the affair raised the prospect of the club being pressed further towards the abyss.
Yesterday Gianfranco Zola, the West Ham manager, sought to accentuate the positives, most notably in relation to Craig Bellamy. The striker is the subject of interest from Manchester City and Tottenham but Zola hopes his bond with the Wales international will persuade Bellamy to stay at Upton Park.
"I have not come across many players who speak more than Bellamy but I like him," Zola said. "He tells you the truth all of the time. I know that he's got good teams around him that are tempting him but we want him to stay with us. I have a very good relationship with Craig, he's the perfect professional. I hope that I'm giving him something that will feed his wish to improve. I have some players I consider very important for the club and the club knows that. We want to keep those players and Bellamy is one of them."
Scott Parker, Matthew Upson and Robert Green make up Zola's untouchables but West Ham's directors have even greater worries now that the FA and Premier League have decided to peer back into Pandora's box. Those bodies have felt a moral and legal compulsion to do so following the devastating findings of Lord Griffiths' arbitration panel last year, which castigated West Ham for their behaviour after the original independent inquiry into the affair, chaired by Simon Bourne-Arton, had found against them in April 2007.
Griffiths, in simple terms, branded West Ham liars for what they did after Bourne-Arton had fined them £5.5m and ordered them to rip up the illegal third-party ownership arrangement that they had in place concerning Tevez. Griffiths, who will rule in March on the compensation figure to be paid to Sheffield United in what is a separate civil case, said that Scott Duxbury, who is now West Ham's CEO, had promised to tear up the contentious agreement but privately honour it with Kia Joorabchian, the businessman who represented the third parties who owned Tevez. An appeal panel in 2007, chaired by Sir Philip Otten, had grave reservations about West Ham's actions but they found no errant points of laws upon which to overturn Bourne-Arton's ruling.
Sheffield United fought on and pursued West Ham for monies lost in their relegation from the Premier League in 2007 under the Football Association's rule K. In Griffith's subsequent arbitration which, unlike Otton, could take into account West Ham's behaviour immediately after the Bourne-Arton award, he found in favour of Sheffield United. Lawyers for the FA and the Premier League have since poured over Griffiths' findings and they will now consider whether to bring further charges against West Ham.
The skies above the club's training ground yesterday were gloomy and a thin mist further added to the foreboding. However, Zola is one of life's optimists.
Happily for him, results have picked up – back-to-back wins in the Premier League lifting the club to 10th position and the FA Cup victory over Barnsley on Saturday making it three in a row. He is pruning his squad; Matthew Etherington has joined Stoke City for £4m, Calum Davenport is talking to Bolton Wanderers and Lee Bowyer has an offer from Birmingham City. Zola hopes to keep his big names and it was just possible to discern optimism. Then the ghost of Carlos Tevez could be heard to shriek.
