Money's talking but not with much sense

SOCCER ANGLES:The Tevez affair shows how third-party ownership has shifted the goalposts, writes Michael Walker

WE HARDLY need to be told that something's changed. The game, the entity that is professional football in England is in a cycle of revolutions that are financial, behavioural, social and sporting and while the energy generated by any revolution is electric and fascinating, sometimes what is lost or forgotten or trampled upon is just as important.

To be at Bramall Lane on May 13th of last year was to witness the full spectrum of change.

Bramall Lane, one of those great hulking old grounds that can still be walked to from a city centre, has been home to Sheffield United since 1889. It was a big year for Parnell. Bramall Lane goes way back.

One hundred and eighteen years on, we had a hint that Sunday afternoon, wet, overcast and heavy with meaning long before kick-off, that we were being shown the new present and the future as well as the tradition of the city with the oldest football club in the world, Sheffield FC.

The day began with Sheffield United outside the bottom three, an achievement for a just-promoted club as the last game of the season approached.

Wigan, the visitors to Bramall Lane, were one place below them and had to win to give themselves a chance to stay up. The thought consoling the United manager Neil Warnock and Blades' fans was that West Ham were also in the relegation mix and they were at Old Trafford. There they had to get at least a point.

Things started badly for Sheffield United. Paul Scharner put a breezy Wigan one up early on and though Jon Stead equalised bravely, Wigan came again and scored from a David Unsworth penalty on the stroke of half-time.

Coincidentally, in the same minute at Old Trafford, Carlos Tevez scored for West Ham. It was 1-2 at Bramall Lane and 0-1 at Old Trafford at the interval. That's the way it stayed. Sheffield United went down, Wigan and West Ham survived.

As the rain fell ever harder on south Yorkshire that long Sunday night, the sunny city of Buenos Aires sparkled in the gloom.

That is where Tevez is from, South America is where many Premier League players are from. It is part of the changing world and the methods and the means from there are different, aren't they?

When Cristiano Ronaldo used the word "slave" to describe his relationship with Manchester United during the summer, he was rightly ridiculed, but there was something unsavoury about Tevez' contractual situation. It has been long-questioned but this week it finally blew up and the consequences are appropriately large.

Who owned Tevez and who paid whom was contested from the moment in August 2006 that he joined West Ham in the company of Javier Mascherano. But there was also fanfare at the time, this was one of the most exciting transfers Upton Park had seen.

Yet again the pulling power of the Premier League was being paraded. Maradona, no less, had labelled Tevez "a prophet". But we were also made familiar with other terms such as "third-party ownership".

We did not like the sound of that or the implications. It felt sly somehow and we were uncomfortable.

Sure enough, even the Premier League - eventually - did not like the way Tevez had been registered and they fined West Ham for that. But crucially they allowed Tevez to play on.

This week an independent tribunal under the auspices of the English Football Association found West Ham guilty of benefiting from Tevez' presence, especially on that afternoon at Old Trafford. But his six goals in the previous nine matches could hardly be glossed over either.

Due to bad practice, Tevez had been allowed to make a difference substantial enough to keep West Ham up. Few football observers would disagree.

But in a court of law it is not so straightforward and so though the tribunal has awarded Sheffield United compensation of €37.75 million, West Ham will employ lawyers to fight their way out much as they employed Tevez to do the same.

Money being money, individual Sheffield players have now consulted other legal adviseors to see if they have a claim on lost earnings, their pay having been halved on relegation.

Some might throw up their hands and ask how we got to the situation where what we know colloquially as "a ringer" from Argentina was able to change the season's outcome of Sheffield United and West Ham United. But the answer is deregulation and the addiction to stay in front. It belongs to the Premier League, hence 39th game and all that.

Thanks to the goals of Carlos Tevez two years ago, that feels a world away from Bramall Lane.

Dug in, dugout

ONE OF the unforgettable chants down the years came at Manchester City back in 1993 when the club still played at Maine Road and City rather than Newcastle were the outstanding eejit club in the land.

It was a midweek night as City failed again in front of their own fans and the rumour spread that Peter Reid was to be sacked and a man called Brian Horton was to come in as his replacement. Neither deed had been done and yet from the old main stand came a chorus of "We want Horton out."

Horton, a good football man, now mentoring Phil Brown at Hull City, never stood a chance at a club then tearing itself and managers apart. He was the second of six in five years.

The memory was jolted yesterday when Shay Given was confronted with the appointment of Joe Kinnear at Newcastle United.

"I don't really know that much about him," a pale-faced Given said. "Am I pleased? No, we're still up for sale and we still don't have a permanent manager. It's going somewhere I suppose but I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I don't really know what to say or where to start."

Given joined Newcastle in 1997. Joe Kinnear will be the eighth man he has seen yelling instruction from the dugout. Soon Given will be onto the ninth. Horton Out.

Keane to stay put ?

"WHY WOULD I walk away from this club?" The words of Roy Keane yesterday. The Sunderland manager woke up to some alarmist headlines on Thursday morning that suggested walking away is an option very much on Keane's mind.

Considering it is not that long since Keane said that he felt "born to manage Sunderland the way I felt born to play for Manchester United", it seemed an extrapolation too far to imply that a few abusive shouts during a poor performance against Northampton Town would alter Keane's sense of destiny.

Three days on Keane was prepared to concede that having beaten Northampton on penalties, being in today's fourth-round draw of the League Cup and having taken four points from the last two league games, Sunderland is not a bad place to be. There were also encouraging words for Anthony Stokes, scorer against Northampton.

As Keane has acknowledged, moods swing. The signature on Keane's new contract should put an end to some of this.