'Undercover: Football's Dirty Secrets'

FA to probe Panorama Allegations

The Football Association says it will investigate "any possible breach of the rules" over allegations regarding the payment of bungs within the game.
Bolton boss Sam Allardyce is at the centre of the allegations of illegal payments uncovered by a BBC Panorama undercover film.

The film shows two agents claiming they paid bungs to Allardyce, who denies ever asking for or taking a bung.

The FA has asked for any evidence uncovered by the Panorama programme.

An FA spokesman said: "We have watched the programme with great interest and have asked the BBC if they will share the findings from their investigation with us.

"If we have evidence of possible breaches of rules and regulations we will of course investigate that."

Agent Teni Yerima claims he bribed Allardyce in the past and another agent Peter Harrison describes offering to pay the Bolton manager's son Craig, who Panorama claim received secret payments from agents during three transfer deals.

Former England managerial candidate Allardyce also told the BBC he would not condone any breaches of FA rules - whatever personal affection he has for his son.

Craig Allardyce said he was exaggerating his own importance to the undercover reporter in order to attract opportunities.

He denied any wrongdoing in his Bolton deals or in his relationship with the club.

Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp is secretly filmed discussing an illegal approach to buy the Blackburn defender Andy Todd.

Redknapp denies his conversation about Todd with agent Peter Harrison amounted to "tapping up".

Redknapp's assistant at Portsmouth at the time of the filming, Kevin Bond, is secretly recorded admitting he would consider discussing receiving payments from a proposed new agency involving Peter Harrison. Mr Bond also says he will discuss it with his then boss Harry Redknapp.

Redknapp told the BBC that he has never taken a bung and had given Kevin Bond no reason to think otherwise.

When Bond was told of the filming he said that he is not interested in receiving bungs and that no one he has ever worked with has taken a bung.

The documentary also shows Chelsea's director of youth football, Frank Arnesen, secretly filmed making a illegal approach or "tapping up" Middlesbrough's England youth star 15-year-old Nathan Porritt.

Chelsea have denied the filmed meetings broke any industry rules.

The Premiership champions were given a suspended three-point deduction by the Premier League when they were found guilty of illegally approaching Arsenal's Ashley Cole, who has since joined Chelsea.

There are allegations concerning other potential breaches of industry rules in the programme that fall outside the terms of reference of Lord Stevens' inquiry

But the Press Association has reported that Panorama's claims will not lead to that points deduction being triggered.

Chelsea are also currently the subject of a joint investigation by the Premier League and Football Association over claims by Leeds of illegal approaches for three academy players last season.

The Press Association claims the suspended sentence refers to 'contracted players', and not academy players.

Panorama claim 18 past and present Premiership managers had been named as having taken illegal payments.

Sports minister Richard Caborn called on the programme to hand its evidence to the Premier League's inquiry, headed by Lord Stevens, which is due to announce its findings into illegal payments in football on 2 October.

"The integrity of sport needs to be upheld and there are proper rules for managers and agents. These allegations damage the integrity of football and need to be looked at properly.

"The programme alleged they had names of 18 managers who had received illegal payments, and I think they should give all their findings over to the Lord Stevens inquiry.

"This reinforces what I have been trying to do to bring in greater regulation into football through the European Football Review."

And a Premier League statement backed Caborn's view.

That statement said: "The Premier League have asked for the BBC to make their evidence available to the Stevens inquiry.

"The Premier League takes all allegations of this nature seriously, which is why we launched an inquiry into alleged irregular payments in transfers back in January of this year.

"As we have made clear any evidence from any source is welcomed. Indeed when the BBC initially approached us regarding Panorama's findings we requested they be submitted to Lord Stevens for investigation.

"We hope now the BBC has had the opportunity to broadcast that their documentary evidence and filming will be made available to Lord Stevens and his team.

"There are allegations concerning other potential breaches of industry rules in the programme that fall outside the terms of reference of Lord Stevens' inquiry.

"Again we request the BBC pass on their evidence in order that the FA and ourselves can examine all aspects of these allegations in order to determine the most appropriate course of action that each body should take."
Click to expand...
 
How can they say Harry was tapping a player. This conversation could happen anywhere. There was no fee's talked about or anything so it's a conversation saying he liked toddy and would have him. He could have said he'd have Ronaldinho but it would never happen.

It's the players most of the time crying like baby's to their agent's that they're not getting a game.

If they sign a contract they should honour it especially if it was a bosman signing. They're quite happy to take the big signing on fee after all.

There should be no agent fee's included in deals. If a player wants to use an agent then he and only he should pay the agent. After hearing Peter Harrison got over a million in one deal that shows why there's a problem.
 
I hope they didnt break their story too soon. Ultimately this will drive it more underground. When this kind of money is involved it is never going to go away. Just shows that when you scratch the veneer of football its a dirty world underneath from top to bottom.

As much as it brought a lot into the public eye, Id still like to see some of the un-edited stuff.

As for Harry I always found it strange that every season he always seems to sell 10 or 15 players. Must be in for some retirement ;)
 
I thought it was strange that the BBC kept saying that they were going to blow the world of football apart and name names etc, and then proceeded to edited most of the names out. :rolleyes:
 
Surely a few agents saying that a particuar person takes bungs is not enough to actually convict that person. I didn't watch the show completely but did any of the people on the show actually take a bung?
 
mcdermos said:
Surely a few agents saying that a particuar person takes bungs is not enough to actually convict that person. I didn't watch the show completely but did any of the people on the show actually take a bung?
Click to expand...

Nope. It was agents saying that SA takes bungs etc, and how everything works. However, Frank Arneson of Chelsea was interested in a Boro youth player, and he was actually discussing how he would fit in, and how much money he would offer, illegally. It was £150k over 3 years, with a bonus or something. Not sure if I misheard it, but there was intent, which could be enough to take action upon!
 
Pretty much a waste of an hour, I thought.

Nothing truly shocking came to light (other than Craig Allardyce's gross stupidity). No fees were mentioned, no manager's taken to task, no deals done. No evidence of anything wrong, just a lot of agents giving it plenty of mouth.

I doubt that the FA will do anything about this. Even Chelsea won't get anything done about their comments, as this part of the conversation was dealing with a junior, not a professional player. Different part of the regulations covers that, so their suspended sentence from earlier won't come into play.
 
Why hasn't Allardyce instructed his lawyers to instigate proceedings against the BBC ?

Methinks there be even more demons to be uncovered if he did. The BBC wouldn't have put out such a programme without it being legally watertight.
 
Following the BBC's recent panorama investigations and the subsequent television programme, neither Sam Allardyce or Harry Redknapp will be in charge of their teams when the sides meet at Fratton Park on Monday................






..... Apparantly Big Sam's all bunged up and Harry's not feeling 2 grand :D
 
My girlfriend has just spoken to her uncle who was the executive producer as well as one of the actors (if you think about it you can probably guess).

He told her all the juicy bits that they had to bleep out due to lack of evidence. He said who the big name manager who backed out of the 100k bung was (not a surprise) and which clubs are in the doo-doo.

Shame I can't share it with you, she said she'd do bad things to my man parts if I did. Sorry for being a tease.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom