West Ham United has been charged with breaking player ownership rules in buying Argentine stars Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, the English Premier League stated on its Web site. In the case of both transfers, the league’s board said the agreement enabled a third party “to acquire the ability materially to influence the Club’s policies…or the performance of its teams.”
“At the time of the transfer agreements for both Tevez and Mascherano, and until January 24, 2007, West Ham United failed to disclose the third-party agreements to the Premier League and/or deliberately withheld these agreements,” the Premier League said. The club now has 14 days to respond to the charges.
While the third parties weren’t mentioned, you can imagine that the player’s mysterious agent Kia Jorabchian and his former sports management company Media Sport Investment have something to do with it. Tevez and Mascherano were signed on the last day of the transfer window on August 31 under circumstances that remain unclear. Joorabchian, the former head of MSI, which owns the Brazilian club Corinthians, tried to organize the takeover of West Ham United in August 2005, and again last fall. Ultimately he failed to raise funding, and an Icelandic consortium led by Eggert Magnusson eventually took over the East London club.