Eight current or former Premier League managers have accepted bribes during player transfer negotiations, according to an investigation carried out by The Daily Telegraph.
The newspaper published details of conversations between a number of football agents and their undercover reporters where it claimed managers were paid off in order for them to sign a player.
The investigation also claims two Championship managers were willing to take illicit payments from agents. No managers were named in the report.
One agent claimed the paying and receiving of transfer “bungs” is widespread in English football with everything conducted “under the table”.
Another agent described one manager as “every bent”, while another claimed: “There is one thing I’ve always been able to rely on, and that is the greed of general managers.”
Pino Pagliara, an unlicensed Italian football agent, is at the centre of the allegations and explained in his conversations with undercover reporters how one manager openly asked for “a little coffee” during talks over a player – a pay-off for himself.
Pagliara said: “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.”
Pagliara explained how managers used a number of different bank accounts to cover their tracks after being paid off, also bragging he could effectively end the career of one manager he had worked with. “He’s very bent… I’ve got bank accounts of his, I’ve paid money to him, yeah course I did.”
The manager in question was contacted by the Telegraph only for his representatives to describe the allegations as “completely false.”
The latest wave of allegations follow claims from The Telegraph that Sam Allardyce advised their reporters how to “get around” transfer regulations relating to third party ownership, a practice banned by the FA.
Allardyce subsequently offered his resignation on Tuesday evening, leaving the national team after just 67 days in charge.
Meanwhile, the former Bolton boss claims “entrapment has won” after facing the media for the first time since losing his job as England manager.
Allardyce told the media assembled outside his Bolton home “Obviously I have to do this before I go away. On reflection it was a silly thing to do.
“I was trying to help someone out I knew for 30 years and unfortunately it was an error in. judgement on my behalf.
“Entrapment has won on this occasion.”
