Redknapp: ‘Players bet on match’
HARRY REDKNAPP has claimed players at a team he managed gambled on the result of one of their matches.
Betting on football by current professional players in England is prohibited by the Football Association, with a worldwide ban on doing so enforced since August 2014, toughening up existing rules.
Redknapp says he was unaware at the time that his players were betting on the outcome of the match and denies any wrongdoing.
The Daily Telegraph, whose undercover reporters filmed Redknapp without his knowledge as part of an investigation into British football, does not identify the match or players in question, or the year in which the fixture occurred.
The newspaper claims Redknapp’s team were odds against to win a match but secured a comfortable victory.
Redknapp is shown saying in a video that the opposition “murdered us early on”, and adding: “At half-time I took (a player) off and put, erm, (another player on) and they’re all looking at me, all the lads, ‘cause I didn’t know they’d had a bet, ‘cause they was (sic) all choked, they’d all had a spread bet and everything.”
He has managed a string of teams including Bournemouth, West Ham, Tottenham, QPR, Portsmouth and Southampton and the Jordan national team.
When contacted by the newspaper, and told that betting by players would be against the rules, Redknapp reportedly replied: “Oh, would it? Oh, okay. But not at that time I don’t think it was, was it? They weren’t betting on the other team, they were having a bet on their own team.”
Asked about his remarks about the players gambling on the game, The Telegraph claims he told the newspaper: “Unbeknownst to me. No, not a spread bet. It wasn’t a spread bet. I think they had a bet on the game, but it wasn’t, that was nothing to do with me... after the game I’d heard the rumour the lads had had a bet that day.”
There is no suggestion Redknapp may have broken the law.
The FA said it will investigate all the allegations made in the Telegraph once it has received the newspaper’s full evidence file.