The most protracted and complex transfer saga in English football history ended last night with Carlos Tévez on the verge of joining Manchester United. The player’s agents agreed to pay West Ham United £2 millon to end the dispute in exchange for the club releasing the registration of the Argentina forward, a compromise that the Premier League is aware of and is expected to ratify today.

Kia Joorabchian, who fronts Media Sports Investments (MSI) and Just Sports Inc (JSI), the companies that own the economic rights to the player, will withdraw the writ issued against West Ham last week in an attempt to force the club to release Tévez. The move will avoid potentially embarrassing disclosures during a High Court case, which had been set for August 22. MSI and JSI have paid a higher fee than the £100,000 stipulated in the contract to ensure that the player is ready for the start of the season. West Ham had wanted £5 million.

The Premier League appears to have backed down from its insistence that West Ham must receive an appropriate sum from Manchester United for Tévez. His agents are believed to have argued that Tévez would be close to worthless because he is unwilling to play for West Ham and that the Premier League could not define a transfer value when the player wanted to go only to Old Trafford.

Tévez has agreed to move to United for an initial loan of two seasons, with a fee of £10 million payable to MSI and JSI and the option of buying him permanently for a further £20 million. He will earn in excess of £3.5 million a season and is expected to make his debut against Reading at Old Trafford on Sunday week.

Sir Alex Ferguson, the United manager, has said that he regards Tévez as a natural partner for Wayne Rooney in attack, but he has also noted the player’s ability to operate in wider positions. Either way, with Louis Saha, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, Park Ji Sung, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Ander-son and Nani also in contention, competition for places will be intense, which is one reason why Ferguson has accepted a £6 million offer from New-castle United for Alan Smith, a day after selling Giuseppe Rossi to Villarreal, Smith was discussing personal terms on Tyneside last night.

Another seemingly certain departure is Gabriel Heinze, with a growing recognition from United that his position is untenable after his flirtation with Liverpool. United, while fiercely opposed to selling him to the Mersey-side club, are inviting interest in the Argentina defender from Italian and Spanish clubs in the hope of avoiding the High Court action threatened by the player’s agent, Roberto Rodriguez.

The Premier League’s climb-down on Tévez will anger Sheffield United, who are expected to start proceedings against West Ham in the next few days. The Yorkshire club will seek compensation after estimating that relegation to the Coca-Cola Championship will cost them £50 million. Sheffield United may believe that their case has been strengthened by the revelations in the High Court this week that the East London club’s Icelandic owners had signed a second agreement with the “owners” of Tévez.

West Ham had maintained that they should not be penalised for the misdemeanours of a previous regime, an argument that was supported by an independent commission when it fined the club £5.5 million, with no points docked when many considered it a more suitable punishment, for a breach of Premier League rules over the arrivals of Tévez and Javier Mascherano, his Argentina teammate. West Ham are believed to have shown an unsigned version of the document to the commission.

“West Ham failed to disclose crucial documents,” Kevin McCabe, the Sheffield United plc chairman, said. “The League have been proved to be shambolic.”