A Del Boy character who only operated in the lower leagues
EVEN Dax Price’s own barrister described his client as a “bulls–––––r”, a Del Boy character who would say anything, exaggerate any story, elaborate any anecdote, to make himself appear more than he was.
It was an insult intended by Graham Trembath QC as a way of persuading the jury that anything Mr Price said about corruption in football should be taken with a shovel full of salt.
And that anything he said on covert recordings about his own part in corrupting managers and players should be set to one side as nothing more than the bluster of a man keen to impress.
Price, who was born in Brighton, turned his hand to representing football players after working at Gatwick airport, where he was in charge of the final preparation of planes before passengers boarded.
He had a knack for getting on with people and used his natural interest in sport to help arrange sponsorship deals for some of the airport’s sports teams. That in turn led to him representing football players as their agent. But his boasts soon exceeded the reality of his business dealings.
He told The Daily Telegraph’s undercover reporters that he had struck transfer deals worth £10million and £20million for players and that he had the telephone number of every Premier League manager and chairman in his bulging contacts book.
The reality was rather more prosaic, representing journeymen footballers plying their trade with a number of middling and lower league clubs.
His partner, Natalie Horsham, with whom he lives in Kent, told the court he was the kindest man she had ever met. But even she admitted he lived something of a Walter Mitty fantasy life.
“He might bend the truth and exaggerate,” she said. “But he wouldn’t lie.”
His defence rested precisely on his willingness to exaggerate for effect, to play the corrupt wheeler-dealer with his finger in several lucrative pies.
The jury, however, took the view that Price was indeed corrupt and – for all his bluster and boasting about his contacts and influence – had been willing to bribe and corrupt others to succeed as an agent.