LEEDS UNITED have just gone into administration: stifle your amazement. In a remarkable coincidence, the club with a copyright on the phrase "once great" have also passed into the hands of a new company led by loveable Ken Bates.

The old ogre is refusing, literally, to pay for what he deems to be the mistakes of others. The authorities, who possibly saw this one coming, have responded by docking Leeds 10 points, instantly dumping an already doomed club from the Championship to England's League One.

The thinking is well-established. Given several examples of spectacular hypocrisy, those who run football decided that no one should be able to exploit company law simply to avoid the consequences of incompetence and welsh on debts. The 10-point penalty has become a standard punishment.

Bates, by all accounts, isn't too fussed. Leeds will begin life in League One in August with a clean slate. They may not have a stadium to call their own, or much in the way of a playing staff, but they will not be further handicapped in terms of points. Fair enough?

Not, perhaps, if you happen to be a creditor. Ten points do not count for much at the bank. On the other hand, if you are a supporter who has stuck with Leeds through their amateur hour version of a Shakespearian tragedy, the deal doesn't look too bad. There are fans who even now regard Ken Bates as a small price to pay.

Nevertheless, the episode provides a neat parallel with the row enveloping West Ham. In that regard, I should declare an interest and a soft spot.

It might have been counter-intuitive for a Scottish child of the 1960s to develop an affection for Bobby Moore's club, but my grandparents had old friends in the East End. I spent a couple of holidays there. The Hammers were inescapable.

I still look out for their results, and generally wish I hadn't bothered. Yet I can't think of the English game without them.

I have even been known to induce comas in by-standers by explaining what a power the club could have been if they had managed to retain half of the talents they had produced. Hibs, West Ham: note the spiritual connection.

Ask yourself this, however: if Leeds have been docked 10 points for a standard infraction, why should Eggert Magnusson's new toy avoid the same punishment after a flagrant breach of the rules? This weekend, Charlton, Fulham, Sheffield United and Wigan - the Premiership standings may explain their interest - have lawyers at work on that very question.

It revolves around the Premier League's rule U18. This is intended to prevent third parties from exerting a material influence on a club's "policies or team performance". In practical terms, it means that you must on no account field anyone who is not legally, and demonstrably, your employee.

Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano did not fit the bill.

Quite why the pair ended up at West Ham in the first place is a mystery yet to be explained. On the face of it, they seemed a little too classy for Premiership strugglers. Tevez, it transpires, was owned "exclusively and absolutely" by two offshore outfits named MSI and Just Sports Inc; the "economic rights" in Mascherano were held by Global Soccer Agencies and Mystere Services.

West Ham failed to make this clear, or to put the situation right.

It is alleged, in fact admitted, that the club lied about the paper trail before Magnusson fronted an Icelandic group prepared to pay an astonishing £85 million for the Hammers. Recent events have left the new chairman less than pleased, by all accounts. He, too, is said to be consulting lawyers.

Wouldn't you? The fibs of a previous regime have just cost his backers a fine of £5.5m, but for Wigan, Charlton, Fulham and Sheffield United, it's a smack on the wrist. They want to know what happened to the 10-point penalty.

Their motives are plain. If Magnusson's club faced that sort of (no pun) hammering they would join Watford as the Premiership's dead men walking. Without a points deduction - and with Tevez living up to his billing at last, scoring another double in the win over Bolton yesterday - one of them risks the drop. Under the Premiership's new broadcasting deal, that's a loss of £30m in TV money alone.

Small wonder, the quartet might add, that West Ham have offered a belated confession and swallowed the £5.5m fine.

Two facts are worth noting. One is that the rules do not, in fact, lay out a tariff of punishments. The judging panel merely attempt to tailor those to the crime. West Ham confessed; the new owners were not at fault; no one from the Premiership thought to prevent Tevez from playing; innocent fans should not be victimised; and - this counts as the most important factor - competition would be distorted by the Hammers' instant relegation.

Hence the second fact. Wigan and friends retain the option to punish West Ham with an old football tactic. You remember the one. It's called winning more games. Instead, like those adorable players who wave imaginary cards at a referee, they demand swift discipline.

They want a ruling that suits them. Sometime next week their lawyers will probably mention natural justice. I suspect that the prospect of £30m apiece has more relevance.

It's distasteful, to put it mildly. After all, no one is saying that West Ham's "policies or team performance" were in fact influenced by shadowy offshore outfits. The club's only real crime was to allow the possibility. Equally, the bizarre world of South American player contracts may well amount to a scandal, but one London club cannot address that issue. Finally, isn't £5.5m a hell of a lot of money?

Led by Wigan's righteously indignant chairman Dave Whelan, the quartet refuse to grasp those facts. Instead, they would rather lay hands on £30m each and forget the real meaning of their complaints.

They want to rearrange the Premiership to suit themselves. Actual results no longer matter if there are easier ways to do in a rival.

Has the Premiership been tainted by money? Discuss.