Today In The Premiership: Saying Goodbye To Sheffield United

After a day like today, it's hard not to love the relegation/promotion system employed by the international soccer community. The championship's decided, yet this final weekend was still the most exciting one of the season, and now, we'll get to bonus excitement of some stoppage time in the legal system. WooHoo!

In the end, Wigan's staying up, and West Ham's staying up ... Sheffield is not, and Sheffield is pissed. In fact, the only people who seem to be okay with West Ham staying up are West Ham fans. Everyone else kind of hates them.

The League ruled recently that West Ham broke the rules in their signing of Argentine stud Carlos Tevez, and levied a $5.5 million fine against them, the largest in Premiership history. But it was just a fine, Tevez kept playing, and West Ham suffered no other penalty ... a ruling that was not warmly accepted by fellow relegation-strugglers Wigan and Sheffield.

And scoring the game-winner in West Ham's 1-0 win over Manchester United today ... naturally, Carlos Tevez. In fact, it was Tevez's play over the last month that single-handedly kept West Ham alive.

And speaking of that 1-0 win over Manchester United ... Sir Alex Ferguson had promised to play his strongest line-up in the game, so as to have the relegation battle decided honestly. And then he failed to start Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, and Rio Ferdinand. Oh, and Ferguson is known to be old friends with West Ham manager Alan Curbishley. It's all very naughty.

And now, the whole thing is likely headed to court. Sheffield's already made it known that they intend to sue the league if they're relegated at the expense of West Ham. So there's that to look forward to. And check out That's On Point for a deeper and more qualified opinion of the whole thing.

Sheffield still looking at lawsuit [euFootball.biz] Man Utd 0-1 West Ham [BBC] Sheff Utd 1-2 Wigan [BBC] Bubbles, Blades and Borussia [That's On Point]