Caught on camera, world according to Big Sam
ON ROY HODGSON
AS AN AFTER-DINNER SPEAKER ‘He’d send them all to sleep, Roy. Woy. He hasn’t got the personality for it.’
ON THE TAXMAN
‘The most corrupt business in our country would be what? You’ll be shocked when I tell you this – HMRC. They fly out tax demands without any real knowledge whether they should or shouldn’t. They just put ’em out willy-nilly. People s*** themselves and pay them. Most of the punters don’t owe it. Actually the taxman owes them money.’
ON ROBBIE WILLIAMS & FERGIE
Allardyce said Sir Alex Ferguson received ‘four hundred, five hundred grand a pop’ for speaking engagements. Robbie Williams, he said, got ‘£1.6million for a wedding — just singing’.
ON THE FA
‘They’re all about making money, aren’t they? You know the FA’s the richest football association in the world? Well, I shouldn’t say that. They’re not the richest at all. What they do is they have the biggest turnover in the world with £325m.’
ON THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE
FAILING TO TURN UP AT THE EURO 2020 LAUNCH ‘The only one that never turned up was Prince William. He’s our ambassador for the FA, so it would have been nice if he’d have turned up but he obviously had more, much busier things on.’
ON THIRD-PARTY OWNERSHIP
‘It’s not a problem… they’ve been doing it for years… You can still get around it. Obviously the big money is here... We got Valencia in (for West Ham). He was third party owned when we bought him from Mexico.’