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Exclusive: West Ham face points deduction
West Ham face the prospect of a points deduction if a new probe into the Carlos Tevez affair finds that they twice broke Premier League rules.
The announcement yesterday of a joint FA and Premier League inquiry into West Ham’s behaviour, after they were first fined a record £5.5million in April 2007, is a victory for the Daily Express’s campaign into the affair.
After that fine – when many observers expected a points deduction – Tevez played on for the club and played a key role in their successful battle to avoid relegation.
This came after West Ham promised the League they would end his third-party control by the two companies who “owned” his commercial rights.
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We have nothing to hide
But it later emerged at an arbitration tribunal, chaired by Lord Griffiths, that club chief executive Scott Duxbury had given “verbal assurances” to the player’s agent that the third-party agreements remained in place after the pledge to the League to end them.
Last year the Express produced documents that proved the third parties had insured Tevez to play in those crucial final games after the initial judgement and fine.
The club said: “We have nothing to hide.”