London, July 3:

Sheffield United has failed to overturn its demotion from the Premier League and will play in the League Championship next season.

The Blades asked an arbitration panel on June 18-19 if it could appeal a decision by a Premier League committee that fined West Ham but did not dock any points over the illegal signing of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano.

After consideration, the arbitration panel dismissed that appeal on Tuesday. Sheffield United and Fulham also failed in their bid to get the panel to rule on whether the Premier League acted unlawfully by not stripping Tevez of his league registration. “We are obviously very disappointed by this conclusion,” Sheffield United said.

Sheffield United said it would consider the findings before commenting further. They had wanted the panel to order a new disciplinary commission to deal with the West Ham issue afresh.

West Ham was fined $10.8 million in April by an independent committee for breaking League rules by signing the Argentine pair on third-party contracts. But it stopped short of docking points from the Hammers, who escaped relegation at the expense of Sheffield after being helped by several goals and assists from Tevez.