Tevez deal today or High Court awaits

Thursday is D-Day for Carlos Tevez - with the warring parties under pressure to strike a deal and avoid a lengthy court battle.

Talks between the Argentina striker's representatives and West Ham broke up last night without an agreement reached.

After today, Tevez's agent Kia Joorabchian and his company Media Sports Investment (MSI) will have to lodge all their papers with the High Court.

Once that move takes place, the dispute will move into another phase and it will become much more unlikely that a settlement can be reached.

West Ham are asking for a fee of several million pounds to release Tevez from his contract and registration and allow his move to Manchester United to proceed before the start of the season.

MSI are claiming they own the player and have lodged a £30million High Court lawsuit against the Hammers. They claim West Ham should only be paid £100,000, as agreed in a controversial third-party agreement that the club ripped up in April.

The key to achieving a settlement is for the parties to agree a sum that is not only acceptable to both, but also to the Premier League who are keeping a close watch to ensure West Ham do not act as though they are governed by those agreements.

A High Court case is likely to centre on a contract proposed by West Ham chairman Eggert Magnusson in December under which Tevez would cease to be a Hammers player this summer.

West Ham will claim that although they sent MSI this new contract, Tevez and Joorabchian never signed it and returned it to them - and that the club passed this document to the Premier League in February.

MSI will insist they did sign the contract and will provide a copy of a signed document to the court.

West Ham will argue that if that agreement had existed then they would have been cleared of having illegal third-party agreements instead of being fined £5.5million by an independent disciplinary commission in April.

Source: Soccernet.com