So why does £1m tax probe Brighton striker have business links to Palace chairman and football agent?
THE Premier League striker at the centre of a £ 1.1million tax fraud investigation is involved in a business whose shareholders include Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish and the head of the one of the most powerful sports agencies in the British game.
Brighton and former Palace striker Glenn Murray, and his wife Stacey, were arrested on Tuesday, with HMRC officers searching their Sussex home. The couple were later released.
Sportsmail can reveal that Murray, his agent Wi l l Salthouse and Parish are shareholders in a chicken restaurant business called Dirtybird Restaurants Limited.
A statement from HMRC confirmed the couple’s arrest, adding: ‘The man was arrested on suspicion of evading income tax and VAT, and cheating the public revenue. The woman was arrested on suspicion of evading income tax, and cheating the public revenue.’
HMRC said ‘ business and personal records were seized during the operation’.
The investigation is ongoing but Sportsmail has uncovered details about Murray’s business dealings and that of his representative Salthouse at Unique Sports Management. It is understood that HMRC may be examining one of the transfers during the career of Brighton’s leading goalscorer.
HMRC would not comment any further yesterday and this newspaper understands that revenue officers had not contacted any officials at Crystal Palace in relation to their former player.
MURRAY has long been repre - sented by USM, a sports management agency which lists Salthouse as its major shareholder.
Yesterday Salthouse confirmed that Murray was managed by USM but declined to answer any further questions, including enquiries concerning his own stake in Dirtybird Restaurants Limited and the fact that he lists players as shareholders in his USM business. While that is not in breach of any regulations if a player’s stake remains below five per cent, football industry insiders do consider such a practice unusual.
In accounts documents listed at Companies House in October 2017, Dirtybird had net assets of more than £2.6million. And in the most recent annual return, filed with Companies House in June 2016, it was stated that Parish had 8.3 per cent of the business with Salthouse, Murray (right) and Wayne Routledge each holding 1.4 per cent.
There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Parish, or indeed Salthouse, Murray and Routledge, the Swansea City footballer who also has shares in USM.
But asked yesterday if his shares in Dirtybird represented a conflict of interest when Salthouse has been involved in at least eight Crystal Palace transfers since 2015, Parish declined to comment.
Salthouse, Murray and Routledge invested in Dirtybird following an allotment of shares issued by the company in May 2015. Parish was already a shareholder.
Keith Andrews, the former Irish international footballer, is also listed at Companies House as a shareholder at USM, as is an ‘Anthony Titus’. It is unclear if Anthony Titus is in fact Dexter Blackstock, the former Southampton and England Under 21 forward now acting as an agent who has close links with Salthouse. But Anthony and Titus are Blackstock’s middle names.
In December 2016 Marlon Fleischmann, who lists Harry Kane among a stellar list of clients, joined USM as a director but what caused more ripples in the football industry was the recruitment of two key figures from the FA. Until October 2015 Martin Fauvel was a financial regulation officer at Wembley but he caused considerable concern among football agents when he informed them, via email, of his intention to cross the divide into their world and join USM. Today he is listed as the head of operations at USM with a brief to ensure ‘legal and regulatory compliance for the company’.
FAUVEL was followed 14 months later by Ian Ryder, a former Metropolitan Police detective who was working at the FA as the football integrity and anti-corruption manager. On LinkedIn Ryder says he is an intermediary for 1st Sports Management but he confirmed yesterday that he also works on a consultancy basis for USM. He even has a USM business card. Concern among other football agents centred on the access Fauvel and Ryder might have had to sensitive information about contracts between agents and their players, given that all representation agreements between footballers and intermediaries are lodged at Wembley under FA regulations.
While there is no suggestion such information has been used to USM’s advantage, they have become one of the most powerful agencies in the game. USM’s last unaudited accounts at Companies House state net assets of £4.48m.
An Irish agent called Eamonn Collins has represented Blackstock in the past, and is understood to be a business associate of Salthouse’s. Together with Fleischmann, Collins and Salthouse are listed as directors of a company in Dublin called Cluainweir Limited.
In August 2016 the Brazillian authorities issued arrest warrants for Collins, himself a former footballer, and two other men as part of their investigation into alleged ticket touting at the Rio Olympic Games. The men denied any wrongdoing.
The allegations against those involved, with former Olympic Council of Ireland president Pat Hickey among them, include ticket touting, money laundering and tax evasion. Brazil’s Supreme Court suspended the case last November.