Investigations into football's "bung culture" by undercover BBC reporters have produced footage of a leading agent alleging that he knows of "six to eight" managers willing to receive illegal payments.
The agent Charles Collymore, whose CS Sports Management firm has represented Premiership players such as Salif Diao, Khalilou Fadiga and Eric Djemba-Djemba, is captured on film which was broadcast on Newsnight last night, making remarks about football's undeclared incomes. "There's managers out there who take bungs all day long," said Collymore. "[Unnamed manager], you know that, takes bungs all day long. We've got [unnamed club], yep all day long." Collymore was last night identified by
Referring to proposals by Panorama's undercover reporters to provide "bungs", Collymore adds: "I would say to you comfortably there's six to eight managers we could definitely approach and they'd be up for this, no problem."
Collymore denied any links with bungs last night: "A third-party introduction led to a meeting with a Mr Knut Auf dem Berge. I became suspicious of his alleged claim to be a front man for an investor. In seeking to uncover his true identity and the validity of his claim, I made some wholly untrue statements to determine his real agenda," he said. "I can categorically state that I have never offered nor accepted a 'bung', to or from anyone."
But his comments to the television investigators come only 13 days before Lord Stevens is to deliver a report to the Premier League chairman, Dave Richards, in which he will provide preliminary findings from an investigation of 320 top-flight transfers over a 24-month period. The inquiry began in March after the Premier League's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, said he wished to remove the "innuendo" surrounding transfer activities. Although the league has stated it would welcome further evidence being directed to Lord Stevens's Quest investigation team, such high-profile comments will only heighten speculation about a culture of kick-backs in football. One difficulty apparently facing football's authorities is that the paper trail involved in covert payments is deliberately obfuscated by the use of offshore accounts.
The FA had been expected last month to deliver the fruit of its compliance unit's inquiry. But, with Panorama launching its own probe 12 months ago, the findings will not be released until later this month.
"Officials at football clubs have allowed it to go on," said Newell on Radio Five Live last night. "Someone is benefiting somewhere along the line. I was offered money on two occasions and I have only been a manager four years. On one occasion it was a football club official trying to make a deal go through." Newell also contributed to tonight's Panorama programme, in which he confirms the agent who offered him a bung was Collymore, along with his assistant Mark Wilson, who unlike Collymore does not hold a Fifa licence.
But key protagonists like Newell have irked some other managers.
Redknapp's former assistant Kevin Bond, who is now