Carlos Tevez' move to Manchester United suffered a fresh setback last night when West Ham blocked the Argentinian's proposed medical on the day that he arrived in Manchester from Venezuela.
Although Tevez has already agreed personal terms of €133,000 a week, the Premier League has demanded that any deal must be done between the two clubs and not with the player's representative, Kia Joorabchian.
A delegation led by the West Ham chairman, Eggert Magnusson, met a team led by the United lawyer Maurice Watkins at the Premier League's offices in London yesterday but no agreement was reached.
It was the first time the two clubs had formally met to talk about the deal. West Ham will not sanction a medical until they are happy for the transfer to proceed and there are currently no plans for the two clubs to resume negotiations. The Joorabchian camp, however, remain optimistic a solution can be found in the "next 24 or 48 hours". "Everyone is still talking and trying to work it through," said a source.
Tevez landed at Manchester airport yesterday evening after playing in the Argentina team that lost 3-0 to Brazil in the final of the Copa America on Sunday night. The 23-year-old plans to stay in the Manchester area looking for permanent accommodation until agreement on his transfer is reached.
It is thought the most likely solution would involve United and West Ham agreeing a deal and then Joorabchian being paid a substantial agent's fee as compensation. The situation is different from the loan arrangement that took Javier Mascherano to Liverpool because in that instance West Ham gave up any claim of ownership of the player.
With Tevez the club tore up their third-party agreement with Just Sports Inc and Media Sports Investments - the company that Joorabchian founded - after being fined €8.2 million for illegally registering the player. West Ham are adamant Tevez is contracted to them for another three years while the Joorabchian camp maintain the agreement cannot be cancelled unilaterally.
Despite currently being over 10,000 miles away from Old Trafford in Tokyo on the first leg of their four-game Far East tour, the United chief executive, David Gill, and the manager, Alex Ferguson, are determined the proposed transfer deal is completed.
United remain confident the deal will reach a conclusion before they return from the Far East on July 28th and Wayne Rooney, who played his first game for two months against Urawa Red Diamonds in Saitama yesterday, admitted he is relishing the prospect of teaming up with Tevez.
"Carlos Tevez was unbelievable for West Ham in the second half of last season. He did brilliantly for them," said Rooney.
"If we can buy him, he will be a great signing for us and I'd really look forward to playing alongside him up front. I don't know how we would turn out as a partnership because I'd have to play with him first but I'm sure we could play together.
"Top players anywhere can work off each other and that's what we would do. At United we don't really play with two up front because we try and rotate around and move, so it won't just be the two of us. I'm sure there will be other players attacking as well."
Tevez' arrival at United would take the club's summer spending towards €89 million following the arrivals of Owen Hargreaves, Nani and Anderson. The reinforcements would suggest Ferguson's side will once again be the team to beat between now and May and Rooney admits the champions are determined to use their strength in depth to bring more success to Old Trafford. He said: "We have a big squad now and it's probably the best squad of players I've ever played with.
"I'm really looking forward to the season because this is the longest summer I've ever had off. It was six weeks in all and after the first couple of weeks I got bored and wanted to get back playing. To win the league last season was fantastic.
"It gives you a taste and makes you want to do it again. But the Champions League is obviously a goal as well. To get so close last year and lose in the semi-final was disappointing." Guardian Service