Eight managers accused of taking transfer payments
English football reeling as corruption revealed and Allardyce gets the flick over ‘bungs’
Eight current and former English Premier League football managers stand accused of receiving “bungs” for player transfers after the Daily Telegraph newspaper found widespread evidence of corruption in the game.
As Sam Allardyce lost his job as England manager following the Telegraph’s disclosures about his conduct, the Football Association faced a separate crisis over the alleged bribery of managers.
Football agents were filmed by undercover reporters boasting about how many managers they had paid, with one agent saying that in football, “everything is under the table”.
The Telegraph plans to also disclose the name of an assistant manager at a leading club who was filmed accepting a £5000 ($9000) cash payment from undercover reporters posing as representatives of a Far Eastern firm that wanted to invest in players.
It leaves the FA facing its biggest crisis in recent years, as it deals with evidence that attempts to clean up the game have failed, while it also has to begin the search for a new manager of the England team.
Allardyce became the shortestreigning permanent England manager in history last night when he lost his job over the disclosures that he had given advice on how to get around FA rules on player transfers while negotiating a £400,000 deal with a fictitious Far Eastern firm.
His insistence that he would have to clear the deal with the FA was not enough to save him.
He had also embarrassed the FA with unguarded comments about England players, his predecessor Roy Hodgson and the FA itself to undercover reporters posing as representatives of the firm.
Yesterday, following a day of talks between Allardyce, the FA’s chairman Greg Clarke and chief executive Martin Glenn, the FA announced that Allardyce had left his £3 million a year job “by mutual consent” after just 67 days and one match.
The FA said in a statement: “Allardyce’s conduct, as reported, was inappropriate of the England manager.
“He accepts he made a significant error of judgment and has apologised. However, due to the serious nature of his actions, the FA and Allardyce have mutually agreed to terminate his contract with immediate effect.”
The Telegraph began its investigation into corruption in football 10 months ago after receiving information about figures in the game who were alleged to have given or received backhanders to help bigmoney deals for players go through.
During a series of meetings with agents, managers and club officials over the summer, undercover reporters built up a dossier of secret recordings and other evidence that suggests corruption remains a major problem in the English game.
The Telegraph has agreed to give all relevant transcripts to the Football Association and police.
As well as the eight current and recent Premier League managers named by agents, two bosses of Championship clubs were said to have been open to so-called “bungs” — illicit payments. A smart, erudite and tacticallysavvy coach who, at 38, looks to have a bright future at the top of the game. The manager has flourished at Bournemouth and only last week described coaching England as the “ultimate” job. Highly thought of by the decisionmakers at the Football Association, the former Middlesbrough boss was brought into the fold to coach the Under21s with an eye on future progression. Will take charge for England’s next four matches against Malta, Slovenia, Scotland and Spain while the FA looks for a new permanent boss. The former Tottenham striker has managerial experience at international level, having been in charge of the United States for almost five years and Germany before that.
Pino Pagliara, an unlicensed Italian agent who was banned from football for five years for match-fixing in 2005, spoke openly about his reliance on the “greed” of managers.
Another agent, Dax Price, said “corruption is just staring you in the face”, while a third, Scott McGarvey, admitted to paying managers “readies” for player transfers.
Pagliara said one manager of a Premier League club would ask if there was “a little coffee” for him when a deal was proposed — a euphemism for a kickback.
A former Premier League manager has had “more backhanders than Wimbledon”, according to Pagliara, while another was allegedly sacked by one club after being “caught with his fingers in the till”.
Describing the level of corruption in the English game, he said: “Here it’s even worse — I thought the Italians were corrupt.”
Price even claimed that one manager would take bungs from his own players after inflating their wages in return for an agreement that they would give him a cut of the extra money.
The agents believed they were going to be employed by the fictitious Far Eastern firm, which proposed investing in players via so-called third party ownership, a practice that is banned by the FA and by football’s world governing body, Fifa.
To prove their credentials they arranged for the undercover reporters to meet several managers, three of whom discussed becoming ambassadors for the fictitious firm.
It was through McGarvey that the reporters were introduced to Allardyce, leading to his downfall, though Allardyce did not become involved in discussions about “bungs” and chastised his friend McGarvey when he raised the subject during one meeting last week.
The FA now faces serious questions about its own governance.
Richard Caborn, the former sports minister, said before Allardyce’s departure: “The FA themselves, to some extent, they’re in the dock as well because they’ve lectured Fifa, they’ve lectured Uefa about making sure that there’s a better governance of the game, that they clean their act up.”
Pagliara, Price and McGarvey all denied wrongdoing last night, saying they had never made illegal payments to managers or other people in the game.
The Telegraph contacted all of the managers named by the agents. Five of them had responded with denials of taking bungs, and three failed to respond. CRICKET FOOTBALL RUGBY