Premier League Side With West Ham

The FA arbitration panel, according to yesterday's Daily Mail, have decided that Scott Duxbury lied to the Premier League when he claimed that West Ham had torn up Tevez's contract with MSI after West Ham were fined £5.5 million.

According to today's Guardian the English Premier League seem to disagree with this finding,

"Despite the fresh findings of Griffiths, the Premier League insist that it strictly enforced the revised terms of Tevez's contract, which had no third party ownership in it, and it points to the subsequent legal battle between West Ham and Joorabchian as evidence that the club were true to their word."

The Guardian are also the latest paper to come out strongly against the FA arbitration panel, after Martin Samuel's excellent article in The Times yesterday. The Guardian point out that Henry Winter "who insisted Tevez's performance against Manchester United (he scored in a 1-0 victory) was the reason the London club stayed up ... in his report named goalkeeper Robert Green as man of the match?"

The Independent are also highly critical of the panel's verdict,

"The tribunal's findings do appear to be based on a subjective and – some would say – emotional judgement."

There definitely seems to be a tide of opinion quickly turning against the arbitration panel's decision.