Exclusive: Eight Premier League managers accused of taking transfer bungs

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• published: 28 Sep 2016
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Exclusive: Eight Premier League managers accused of taking transfer bungs Eight current and former Premier League managers stand accused of receiving “bungs” for player transfers after The Daily Telegraph found widespread evidence of corruption in the English game. As Sam Allardyce lost his job as England manager following the Telegraph’s disclosures about his conduct, the Football Association faced a separate crisis over the alleged bribery of managers. Football agents were filmed by undercover reporters boasting about how many managers they had paid, with one agent saying that in football, “everything is under the table”. Later this week the Telegraph will also disclose the name of an assistant manager at a leading club who was filmed accepting a £5,000 cash payment from undercover reporters posing as representatives of a Far Eastern firm that wanted to invest in players. It leaves the FA facing its biggest crisis in recent years, as it deals with evidence that attempts to clean up the game have failed, while it also has to begin the search for a new manager of the England team. Allardyce became the shortest-reigning permanent England manager in history on Tuesday night when he lost his job over the Telegraph’s disclosures that he had given advice on how to get around FA rules on player transfers while negotiating a £400,000 deal with a fictitious Far Eastern firm. His insistence that he would have to clear the deal with the FA was not enough to save him. During a series of meetings with agents, managers and club officials over the summer, undercover reporters built up a dossier of secret recordings and other evidence that suggests corruption remains a major problem in the English game. The Telegraph has agreed to give all relevant transcripts to the Football Association and has also passed information to the police. As well as the eight current and recent Premier League managers named by agents, two bosses of Championship clubs were said to have been open to so-called “bungs” – illicit payments. Pino Pagliara claimed several football managers are 'bent' in an undercover investigation by the Telegraph CREDIT: TELEGRAPH Pino Pagliara, an unlicenced Italian agent who was banned from football for five years for match-fixing in 2005, spoke openly about his reliance on the “greed” of managers. At San Carlo, the Italian restaurant that doubles as the football world’s meeting room, the names of “bent” football managers tripped off his tongue as easily as the prosecco bubbles popped in his wine glass. The football agent lowered his voice as he named a well-known manager who, he said, asks if there will be “a little coffee” for him if a transfer deal goes through – code for a backhander. Warming to the subject, he described another famous manager as “very bent”, who would ask for kickbacks to be deposited in an offshore account when transfers were agreed. Over the following hours, and during other meetings with undercover Telegraph reporters, Mr Pagliara and two other agents named a total of eight current or recent Premier League managers who they said were known for taking “bungs”, including five they said they had personally paid off. They also named two Championship managers who, they said, had accepted bribes. They were unaware that their conversations were being recorded as part of a Telegraph investigation into corruption in football, thinking instead they were talking to representatives of a Far Eastern firm looking to invest in soccer. With their guard dropped, the agents provided a troubling insight into a footballing nation where, according to one of them, “everything is under the table” and corruption is widespread. By the time Mr Pagliara sat down to his lunch of king prawns followed by risotto at San Carlo in Manchester, where virtually every player, manager and agent in the north west has dined at some point, he had already held several meetings with representatives of the fictitious Far East firm, and was keen to use their supposed financial clout to further his own career in the sometimes murky world of player transfers. He explained to the woman sitting next to him that: “There’s one thing I’ve always been able to rely on, and that is the greed of general managers.” Asked if he meant he paid people in England, he replied, “Here it’s even worse… I thought the Italians were corrupt.” Giving examples, he said of one manager: “We know him very, very well. We do a transfer to [named club], [X] has winked at us and said yeah, I want the player. Is there a little coffee for me, Pino? Yeah, that’s what he will say. “Yeah, course there is. I’ll negotiate that coffee as well.”