‘Corrupt’ football agent told reporter: If you can’t beat them, join them

A “CORRUPT” football agent told an undercover reporter that “if you can’t beat them, join them” as a trial heard yesterday how a covert Daily Telegraph investigation was “massively in the public interest”.

Dax Price, 48, was recorded saying how the “trouble” with English football was that “everyone is getting looked after” as deals are brokered to secure lucrative player transfers, Southwark Crown Court heard.

Mr Price and fellow agent, Giuseppe “Pino” Pagliara, 64, are charged with paying and facilitating a bribe in the socalled “Football for Sale” case.

Secret recordings of their meetings and telephone conversations with Claire Newell, The Telegraph’s investigations editor, were played to the jury during which it was claimed “backhanders” to managers were common.

The agents explained how Harry Redknapp, then football adviser at Derby, and Neil Warnock, the Cardiff City manager – “all them sort of people” – “needed looking after” while brokering deals.

At one point, Mr Price said he had spoken to Lee Johnson who was “amazed” by the level of corruption after moving to manage Bristol City in the Championship.

Recalling an alleged conversation with Mr Johnson, it was claimed: “He said, ‘Well, people are getting backhanders left, right and centre. There’s so much money flying around’.”

Later, Mr Price was filmed claiming Mr Johnson had said he did not want to be “that way” – an apparent reference to being corrupt, before adding: “He said, ‘I have realised that you have to be – there’s no other way round it’.”

Ms Newell told Mr Price: “That’s just how it’s done.” Mr Price, from Sittingbourne,

Kent, replied: “Yeah, it’s like if you can’t beat them, join them.”

In a later meeting, Mr Price said Mr Johnson “would never ever” take money, explaining “not everyone is crooked”.

There were recordings of Mr Pagliara saying that while he had operated in a “sneaky” way for 30 years, he was now eager to be “transparent”, before telling the reporter that the football industry is “not for the faint hearted and it’s not for the morally correct”.

Giving evidence, Ms Newell said in 2015 she received a tip-off from a source about managers receiving “bungs and bribes” from football agents.

She told the jury: “I thought it was massively in the public interest to expose this kind of behaviour because, on the face of it, it would appear to be quite straight forward corruption.”

Mr Pagliara and Mr Price deny two counts of paying and facilitating a bribe. The trial continues.