Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has accused West Ham United of committing an "act of bad faith" with regards to the Carlos Tevez saga in 2007.
The Hammers, who acquired the services of Tevez and now-Barcelona midfielder Javier Mascherano in 2006, were found guilty of lying to the Premier League regarding a third-party involvement.
Tevez's and Mascherano's contracts were partly owned by Media Sport Investment while they were at the Hammers, who kept their status in the top flight largely due to goals by the now-Manchester City striker.
"It is quite simple, you are completely undone by an act of bad faith," Scudamore told Bloomberg. "If a club, through its executives, chooses to lie straight to your face, there is a great deal of damage that can be done from that.
"Ultimately, the Tevez saga goes down to people not being honest. With any regularity body, if people are not honest there is very little you can do about it and that is why the whole thing unravelled.
"It ranks up there as the number one act of bad faith that any club has ever done towards me during my time here. After that, it was dealt with under our rule book and the rest is history."
West Ham were fined £5.5m and were also forced to pay £18m to Sheffield United, who were relegated to the Championship.
