Sheffield United Appeal Over Carlos Tevez Affair Dismissed By Arbitration Panel

Sheffield United's slow, slow death is complete: they have lost their legal challenge against the Premier League after an arbitration panel dismissed their claim over the Carlos Tevez affair.

United had wanted the panel to order a new disciplinary commission deal with West Ham but had their claim dismissed today. The club also lost another claim - made jointly with Fulham - that the Premier League should have forced West Ham to de-register Tevez.

A statement from the arbitration panel read: "The tribunal have found in favor of the FA Premier League on both issues and dismissed the claims of Sheffield United FC and Fulham FC."

West Ham breached Premier League regulations by including third-party agreements when they signed Tevez and Javier Mascherano last summer, and as a punishment they were fined £5.5m in April by an independent commission.

Sheffield United, who were relegated from the Premiership on the last day of the season, claimed that West Ham should have been deducted points instead.

The three-man panel, headed by retired High Court judge Sir Philip Otton, did not have the power to change West Ham's punishment but could have ordered a new independent commission to judge the case.

The Blades' failure effectively ends their battle to avoid relegation to the Coca-Cola Championship.

The ruling from the arbitration panel said Sheffield United would not normally have been allowed to dispute another club's punishment but that there were "exceptional circumstances" due to their relegation and therefore affected their membership of the Premier League.

The tribunal said they had "sympathy" with the Blades, while West Ham had been "deliberately deceitful" and yet remained in the Premier League. They could not, however, rule that the independent commission's decision had been wrong.

The panel's ruling states: "Ian Mill QC [representing Sheffield United] mounted a strong attack on the legality of the decision and the tribunal had much sympathy for Sheffield United's grievances.

"However the tribunal had to apply the principles of judicial review and determine whether the decision was irrational or perverse. This is a very strict test and is very difficult to satisfy. It concluded that it was impossible for this tribunal to find that the decision was irrational or perverse."