Manchester United lost its last game of the season 0–1 to West Ham United on Sunday — only the second time all season that it had lost in its own Old Trafford stadium. Yet its fans reacted with wild applause and cheers, because the game result didn’t matter. The team had sewn up the Premier League title a week earlier, and this was an occasion when the big moment came after the game, amidst the on-field presentation of the trophy and the awards to the coach and players.

If the ManU fans were ecstatic, the state of the 4,000 or so West Ham fans who traveled north for the game bordered on delirium. For while ManU lorded it at the top of the EPL, West Ham had been struggling desperately at the bottom end, and its win meant that, at the last gasp, it had escaped the dreaded relegation to the lower Championship division.

While all was smiles and the gentle whiff of celebratory champagne pervaded Manchester, a sharply different odor, that of sour grapes, was coming from Sheffield, a mere 35 miles away to the east. The result there was Sheffield United 1, Wigan Athletic 2. The loss meant that Sheffield would be the team dropping out of the EPL, down into the much less wealthy Championship.

Sheffield is not about to go quietly. It is threatening legal action against the EPL, a court case in which it may be joined by the two other clubs — Watford and Charlton Athletic — that also suffered relegation, plus Fulham, who barely escaped it, and Middlesbrough. The Gang of Five, they’re being called.

In strict soccer terms, Sheffield got what it deserved. It was a shockingly poor team, coached by a man, Neil Warnock, whose ranting and raving on the sidelines became increasingly obnoxious as his side went from bad to worse. Neither he nor Sheffield United will be missed.

But the issue here is not about the team’s performance. It is first about money, and second — in the view of the Gang of Five — about justice, and the way the EPL has interpreted its own regulations.

The money issue needs no explanation. Next season, each EPL club will receive a payment of around $60 million — coming mostly from the EPL’s sale of domestic and worldwide television rights. Down in the Championship, television income is meager — Sheffield will get around $4 million. Somewhat offsetting that, Sheffield and the other relegated clubs will each receive a “parachute” payment of $20 million from the EPL to soften the bump when they land in the Championship.

The gripe from the Five is that West Ham broke the EPL rules on player signings and should have been punished by having points deducted from its season total. Even a minimum three-point deduction would have doomed West Ham to relegation.

The EPL did, in fact, find West Ham guilty of improperly signing the two Argentine stars Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez last August. West Ham claimed the players were being bought from the Brazilian club Corinthians when they were actually owned by a third party, an Iranian agent named Kia Joorabchian. Thirdparty ownership is not permitted by the EPL, which fined West Ham a whopping $10 million — but did not deduct any points.

The Five claim that all similar cases and precedents have resulted in a point deduction. The EPL replies that its rules have no mandatory requirement for such a punishment. Anyway, the Five are operating within the shady realm of sports jurisdiction, where there is a pretty general agreement that disputes should be settled internally and should not be referred to the legal system. The point being that all clubs that are part of the EPL know the rules and have implicitly, if not explicitly, accepted them.

That’s not how the Five see it. They claim to be fighting for justice. The Wigan chairman, Dave Whelan, is adamant that action needs to be taken against the EPL, even though his club’s win over Sheffield United means that it remains in the EPL. Immediately after that victory he said, “We set off down the road for justice and we will not come off the road until we get it. I have just seen the chairman of Sheffield United and told him, ‘You get stuck into them.'”

It’s a messy business that may drag on through the courts, though the usual reaction of legal systems is to stay out of such matters and refer them back to the sport’s own disciplinary structure.

For now the English season is over. ManU is the champion. West Ham will still be playing in the EPL next season. It is now under new ownership, having been bought by Icelandic businessman Eggert Magnusson. Money is available to purchase new players, but the biggest issue will be the attempt to hang on to a player who is already at West Ham, Carlos Tevez — the Argentine who was at the heart of everything that went wrong and then went so dramatically right in West Ham’s remarkable season.

When he and Mascherano arrived, West Ham went into freefall, going nine games without a victory. The Argentines, it was said, had disrupted the team. Mascherano, who had played very little, departed in January for Liverpool, where he quickly became a key player. Tevez struggled on and became a huge fan favorite. With only nine games remaining in the season and relegation looking inevitable, he took over. West Ham won seven of those last nine games — largely because Tevez scored seven goals — and salvation was in sight. The miracle was completed on Sunday in Manchester with the crucial moment coming in the final minute of the first half. The stocky, sturdy Tevez burst into the ManU penalty area, brushed aside a clumsy tackle from defender Wes Brown, and half-volleyed the ball under goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar and into the net.

But that may be the last that West Ham will see of Tevez’s brilliance. “I’ve stopped learning English as I don’t know where I am going to end up next season,” he said last week. Rumors have him going to Spain, but there is also believed to be interest from ManU and Chelsea.

pgardner@nysun.com