The acrimony rumbles on at Bramall Lane

SHEFFIELD UNITED sparked the final skirmish of the club’s bitter power struggle this week by issuing a legal threat about a minor copyright infringement. Blades chief executive Stephen Bettis signed a letter on Monday ordering a crest to be removed from fencing around an empty plot of land near Bramall Lane. The following day, a lone workman set out from Manchester with pots of paint to obliterate the offending image. It is the latest clash in the longrunning ownership dispute which has seen Prince Abdullah seize control of the club from longserving chairman Kevin McCabe. The Saudi prince won a High Court case last year to acquire McCabe’s 50 per cent stake in the club, newly promoted to the top flight, for just £5million. As part of the ruling, he must also pay the market value for a package of properties, including the stadium and the training ground, from McCabe by July. At the request of the prince, the two parties met in London in January and agreed a settlement which would avoid arbitration. There was to be a downpayment by the end of March but the prince has since withdrawn from the deal, meaning the two sides are once again locked on a course for another court date. Statements were released yesterday by both McCabe’s company Scarborough International and the club. Sheffield United accused its former chairman of trying to force the club out of Bramall Lane, its home since 1889, by increasing the price based on the residential value of the site. Earlier in the week they had sent the legal letter to McCabe about a club crest which appeared on a sign for his company, Sheffield United Ltd, the former parent company and at one time sole owners of the Blades. It had been displayed for months on the hoardings around a vacant plot of land near the ground known as Boundary Corner and has now been painted out. The plot is one of two owned by McCabe which are inside the Bramall Lane site and earmarked for residential development and are not part of the package which Prince Abdullah is obliged to buy as part of the High Court ruling.