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S’pore sting puts Allardyce’s England job in jeopardy

LONDON — For £400,000 (S$705,000), England manager Sam Allardyce will travel to Singapore and Hong Kong to offer advice to interested businessmen who are keen on owning the rights of football players, and keen to get around the English Football Association’s rules on player transfers and third party ownership.

England manager Sam Allardyce was exposed in a sting operation, agreeing to travel to Singapore and Hong Kong as an ambassador and explain to ‘businessmen’ (undercover reporters)how they could circumvent Football Association rules. Photo: Getty Images

England manager Sam Allardyce was exposed in a sting operation, agreeing to travel to Singapore and Hong Kong as an ambassador and explain to ‘businessmen’ (undercover reporters)how they could circumvent Football Association rules. Photo: Getty Images

LONDON — For £400,000 (S$705,000), England manager Sam Allardyce will travel to Singapore and Hong Kong to offer advice to interested businessmen who are keen on owning the rights of football players, and keen to get around the English Football Association’s rules on player transfers and third party ownership.

That was the stunning revelation by English newspaper The Daily Telegraph yesterday after it conducted a sting operation on the 61-year-old Allardyce who was just made the new England manager two months ago.

Pretending to represent a ficticious Far East firm that was looking to profit from the Premier League’s billion-pound transfer market, undercover reporters from The Daily Telegraph managed to seal the deal with Allardyce even before he had held his first training session as England’s new head coach.

They got Allardyce to agree to travel to Singapore and Hong Kong as an ambassador and explained to the “businessmen” how they could circumvent Football Association rules which prohibit third parties “owning” players.

The sting on Allardyce was part of a 10-month investigation by The Daily Telegraph that also, separately, unearthed widespread evidence of bribery and corruption in British football.

Over the course of two meetings lasting four hours in total, Allardyce told the fictitious businessmen that it was “not a problem” to bypass the rules introduced by his employers in 2008. He said he knew of certain agents who were “doing it all the time” and added: “You can still get around it. I mean obviously the big money’s here.”

The issue of “third-party ownership” in football has been described as “slavery”. It effectively allows companies to own a stake in a footballer. The FA led the way by banning the practice in 2008 and football’s world governing body, Fifa, followed last year.

Allardyce told his prospective employers it was “not a problem” to dodge the “ridiculous” rules.

Last week the England manager followed up his initial meeting by having dinner with representatives of the fictitious firm in a Manchester restaurant, where he discussed dates when he could fly to Singapore.

Allardyce, who is paid £3  million a year plus bonuses by the FA, now faces questions about his judgment just weeks after his first and so far only match in charge of the national side.

The Telegraph began investigating corruption in English football last year after receiving information that specific managers, officials and agents were giving or receiving cash payments to secure player transfers.

Over the coming days, the Telegraph will detail a series of allegations of financial impropriety in British football that raise serious questions about the governance and influence of money within the game.

During this summer’s transfer window, Premier League clubs spent a record £1.17 billion on player transfers, with Championship clubs adding another £214  million.

The disclosures are likely to raise concerns at the FA about corruption in English football and whether the industry is adequately regulated.

Allardyce’s comments are likely to lead to questions from his employers at the FA, who expect the England manager effectively to act as an ambassador.

A £400,000 agreement with a football agency firm is a potential conflict of interest for an international football manager as it raises the possibility that he is “employed” by a company whose footballer clients could benefit from preferential treatment.

Allardyce told undercover reporters that the banned practice was still possible in “all of South America, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, all of Africa” and that the Ecuadorean player Enner Valencia had been under a third-party ownership agreement when he signed him for £12  million for West Ham from a Mexican club in 2014.

The third-party ownership arrangement ended on the transfer and West Ham acquired the player “whole”. Asked if it would be a problem to get involved in third party ownership, Allardyce said: “It’s not a problem.”

Third-party ownership involves an agent or an investor owning part of the financial rights to a player, meaning transfer fees are partly paid to them when a player moves clubs, rather than the buying club paying all the money to the selling club.

Allardyce has not been immune to controversy during his career managing clubs including West Ham United, Sunderland and Bolton Wanderers.

In 2006 he was implicated in a BBC Panorama programme which alleged that he had taken “kick-backs” for transfers — a claim he denied. An independent investigation by the former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Stevens found no evidence of irregular payments.

The Telegraph detailed its findings in an email to the FA which set out 18 questions about its findings, including Allardyce’s comments in the two meetings. An FA spokesman has asked the newspaper “to provide us with the full facts in relation to this matter”.

Allardyce did not respond to media queries. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

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