RenB
Bunuel
Jimmy Hill, a player, manager, and pundit, who
had been credited with transforming English football by leading a campaign to remove caps on footballers' salaries, breathed his last on December 19, 2015.
A. had been credited with transforming English football by leading a campaign to remove caps on footballers' salaries,
B. has been credited for transforming English football by leading a campaign to remove caps on footballers' salaries,
C. was credited with transforming English football by leading a campaign to remove caps on footballers' salaries,
D. had been credited for transforming English football by leading a campaign to remove caps on footballers' salaries, has
E. has been credited with transforming English football by leading a campaign to remove caps on footballers' salaries,

bb GMATNinja @crackverbakGMAT
KarishmaBWould like to understand if the meaning implied in C is incorrect or not.
Can it not be the case that Jimmy Hill was credited with XYZ at a time in the past?
As in is it really unacceptable from the meaning POV?
And can I expect something like this on the GMAT?
Looking forward to hearing from you
The thing with past perfect is that the state or event needs to be over before some action or time in the past.
Now, Jimmy Hill was credited with something and the credit hasn't been taken away because of his death in 2015.
'had been credited' implies that he is not credited with transforming English football anymore. The state or action needs to be over. Nothing suggests that some action in the past or at some time in the past, people took away the credit.
In fact, I can even say "Jimmy Hill, who is credited with transforming ... , breathed his last ..."
because even today, we could be giving him credit for transforming English football. The reason we might use 'was' is that people were talking about it in the past saying for example "Jimmy Hill transformed English football..." etc in 80s. Now, 40 years later, it's history and no one talks about it anymore so I can say "He was credited with ..."