Tev told: Fight for freedom!

CARLOS TEVEZ can break free from his owners and stay at Manchester United.

That was the sensational message last night, as the row over his future intensified and the European Parliament prepared to get involved.

United are refusing to pay the £26million fee demanded by a consortium led by Kia Joorabchian, who owns Tevez.

And Chris Heaton-Harris, president of the EU’s powerful Sports Intergroup which deals with sporting matters across the continent, insisted there was nothing to stop the Argie striker going his own way.

East Midlands MEP Heaton-Harris is an influential figure in Brussels on sports issues and admitted he has been shocked by the Tevez saga.

He told SunSport: “It is unique and bizarre that an entity, rather than a club, owns a player.

“In employment terms, Carlos Tevez has a contract himself with this company. But if he went to the European Commission and said he wanted out of it, he would get European support.

“It is just an employment contract. You can’t keep a person to a contract that he doesn’t want to continue in.

“Under European law, he has the right to break this contract.”

There is, of course, no evidence that Tevez wants to break from his owners or Joorabchian, who is also his adviser.

They agreed a loan deal with United two years ago. It had the proviso that, if United wanted to keep the player, they would have to pay £26m for him.

United have not exercised that option, so Joorabchian and his consortium say that it is time to look elsewhere.

Sources close to the player insist he does not want to stay at the club and that he is happy for his ‘owners’ to decide what his future should be.

But United boss Alex Ferguson disputed this on Wednesday night, insisting Tevez wanted to remain and the club had made him a new offer.

SunSport revealed on Wednesday how Tevez’s contract with his owners could contravene European labour rules.

We explained how the argument made by Jean Marc Bosman in 1995, which radically changed football’s transfer system, could be applied to Tevez’s situation.

And United themselves have been exploring possible legal loopholes in the third-party ownership clause of Tevez’s contract. Heaton-Harris added: “Bosman was tied to a football club and Tevez is tied to a company. There is very little difference. It is a simple follow-on from Bosman.

“The football authorities have been amazingly slow to understand the problems that this sort of arrangement causes.

“They could have sent this to the European Commission long ago but chose to sit on their hands and this is what has happened as a result.

“If the FA and UEFA had come to us with this problem in the first place, there would have been none of these contracts and it would have been job done.”

Tevez grabbed an amazing equaliser in the 2-1 victory against Wigan with a clever backheel flick and Wayne Rooney has joined the

fans clamouring for the Argie to be signed up on a permanent deal at Old Trafford.

Rooney said: “Carlos scored a fantastic goal to get us level. He is a world-class player and you always want to see those sorts of player at your club. He is great to play with. He has a lot of energy and has scored some vital goals for us. His work-rate is brilliant and, hopefully, he will sign to stay with us.

“But I don’t know what is happening behind the scenes. It is hard to say what will happen.

“His English isn’t very good but he’s a great lad and it is great to have him in the camp.”

The match-winner at Wigan, Michael Carrick, added his call for Tevez to stay.

He said “We want to keep the squad together as much as we can.

“It is great here and we still haven’t peaked, so it would be nice to keep together.

“Obviously, Carlos is a top player and the fans love him as well. It is not so much the number of goals he scores but the importance of them.

“His goal against Wigan was a classic case of that. He came on, scored and got us back in the game.

“Hopefully, he can score a few more over the next couple of weeks.”


The Sun