08/01/2009

Inquiry, inquisition or the light at the end of the tunnel?

The Premier League and The FA are to institute a joint inquiry into the views expressed by the Independent Arbitral Tribunal chaired by Lord Griffiths in September 2008, which dealt with a compensation claim by Sheffield United against West Ham United brought under FA Rules.
The joint inquiry will examine whether the conduct of West Ham United immediately after the Independent Disciplinary Commission's decision of 27 April 2007 amounted to further breaches of Premier League or FA Rules.

These words, taken from the FA homepage, marks the starting point of yet another twist in the never ending story of the ownership, use and impact of Carlos Tevez during the Great Escape.

If you read it again, after the first adrenaline rush has worn off, you find that it will look into the outcome of the Griffith Tribunal and they came to the conclusion that we were at fault!
Is there really a need to look into that if they agree with that call?
Could this be the appeal that we were denied through the CAS route?
Could this be a way for FA and PL to get this problem back where it belongs and try to take contol over this and to prevent spin off effects in the shape of an increased number of problems being handled in the courts rather than within the football community?

Then the statement says that they will see if there were further breaches of Premier League or FA Rules, and that’s a bit more worrying.
The good (?) thing in the short term is that there will be no need to pay off Sheffield this year. The bad thing is that it will surely pour a bucket of cold water on any takeover discussions!

Bubbleview will be back shortly to expand on this.

4 comments:

Dicks said...

Can you really separate the two parts in that way? Doesn´t it say that it´ll look into the views expressed and that this particular views were that we broke even more rules after the decision that came the 27th of April 2007?

Or will they examine all their findings even though they only makes one example of those views?

Hmm, I wonder if my message made any sense at all? ;-)

Joppe - said...

I get your point.
The stuff that happened after 27 April is an integral part of the problem.
I just went with the wording in the FA statement, and it could maybe be a sign of how they see the issue.

RapidHammer said...

I don't think that this inquiry is able to overturn the finding of the tribunal on damages itself, but it could increase West Ham's chances to overturn the finding of the Griffith panel at the High Court: If the FA/PL won't find any breaches of the rules after 27th April the High Court would have to consider these findings.
I think there are two proceedings at the High Court, the injunction of Sheffield Utd which has stopped WHU to move on with the CAS appeal and another claim by WHU trying to prove that the Griffith panel was wrong. The latter one can only succeed if the High Court finds immense faults or nullities in the arbitration panel's decision.

Joppe - said...

True.
I am not quite sure that this adresses your comment, but I think that since the second tribunal, that is determening the compensation, is a FA initiated one I presume that the FA will have some influence over the outcome.
For instance, if the FA/PL inquiry comes to the conclusion that the PL judgement of a £5 million fine was adequate and no further faults is found I doubt that they would be OK with a £30 million compensation to Sheffield.

I may be wrong but I think Sheffield should be the worrying part.