ENGLAND could be suspended from international competition and English clubs prevented from playing Champions League and Uefa Cup matches if the Premier League is taken to court over West Ham United’s use of ineligible players.

Charlton, Fulham, Sheffield United and Wigan have threatened the league with legal action over its decision to punish West Ham with a £5.5m fine for failing to disclose third-party control in the contracts of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. The clubs believe West Ham should have lost points for breaching Premiership rules and will seek to mitigate their losses should one be relegated to the Championship in the London club’s stead.

Any attempt to do so through the courts is expected to receive short shrift from Fifa, which argues that the involvement of state courts in football disputes interferes with the autonomy of the game and undermines the sport’s own arbitration system. As recently as last summer, Fifa discussed imposing international suspensions on the Italian and Portuguese federations when they were the subject of legal action from their own clubs.

Article 62 of the Fifa statutes states: “Recourse to ordinary courts of law is prohibited unless specifically provided for in the Fifa regulations. To ensure the foregoing, the associations shall insert a clause in their statutes stipulating their clubs and members are prohibited from taking a dispute to ordinary courts of law and are required to submit any disagreement to the jurisdiction of the association, the appropriate confederation or Fifa.”

When the players’ transfers were concluded, West Ham’s contracts with Tevez and Mascherano included clauses allowing investment companies to move the players to other buyers as and when the investors saw fit. These clauses came to the Premier League’s attention when Mascherano moved to Liverpool in the January window. The league appointed an independent commission which found West Ham guilty of breaching rule B13, committing member clubs to act “in the utmost good faith” towards each other, and rule U18, preventing contracts that allow third parties “the ability materially to influence its policies or the performance of its teams”.

The commission elected to impose fines rather than dock points. Representatives of Charlton, Fulham, Sheffield United and Wigan have informed the league that they are seeking legal advice.

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