Craven Cottage Newsround

Well… Panorama nearly lifted the lid on corruption. It showed that there are some greedy people out there, that there are a lot of people wanting a piece of the rich football pie, but didn’t get hard evidence on anyone.

Knut Auf Dem Berge, a fashionably bald German coach who worked in England and was sick of the corruption, agreed to go undercover for Panorama. He was the front-man for a new agency that proposed to look after managers in exchange for preferential treatment in transfer dealings. As one agent put it, give the manager £100,000, make £500,000 on the deal.

Knut filmed Teni Yerima, a licensed agent, and Yerima almost got himself filmed taking a bung. But the Mike Newell story broke at the same time, and Yerima and the un-named manager got nervous. The deal was off.

Next was Charles Collymore and his henchman. Collymore said that 6-8 managers would take bungs, and that this was easily done through the slipping of cash and through off-shore bank accounts. Of all the agents shown Collymore smelled the worst, greedy to the bone. He mentioned Sam Allardyce as well.

We then met Peter Harrison, who Panorama fitted up as the bad guy in all this. Harrison was extremely sly and would frequently try to steer Knut away from direct monetary discussions. He alluded to past misdemeanors, but again, there was nothing direct to go on camera. He suggested that four or five managers would be interested. Sam Allardyce was named again, but this time with a twist: Allardyce has a lot of money now, but if it were to be paid to his son, Craig, that would have the same effect.

This led us to the saddest part of the programme. Allardyce’s son Craig, clearly not the sharpest tool in the box, and dazzled by the dollar signs he saw in Knut. Craig Allardyce was happy to talk up his own importance on certain Bolton deals, was happy to acknowledge his father’s knowledge of this involvement, and happy to admit that sometimes money found its way into the hands of unlicensed agents, which is illegal. As things progressed though, Allardyce junior was gradually exposed as a wannabe, entirely reliant on his father for (lots of) money, and not the big player he wanted to be. When confronted about the tapings, Craig said that he had wanted to seem impressive in front of Knut’s agency. This seems entirely plausible.

We also saw Chelsea (no?!) and Liverpool offering to make an illegal payment for Middlesbrough’s Nathan Porritt, 15 years old and being touted on the sly, and Harry Redknapp being offered a trip to the World Cup.

“What are you doing for the World Cup?” asked Peter Harrison.
“Nothing, probably” said Harry, sheepishly, as if admitting that he didn’t have anyone to go to the school disco with.

Knut caught Kevin Bond, Redknapp’s coach, in his net too. Nearly anyway, mentioning money and not being turned down, but soon Harrison had caught wind of this too, and no more was heard.

What does it all mean?

There are greedy people in football. Managers will try to get sly money where they can. If they do do it, and Sam Allardyce’s reputation can hardly have been enhanced by this programme, they are very careful about it, as you might expect. But managers have lots of money. Chief Scouts and coaches were mentioned, and I believe these people get incentives too. Kevin Bond seemed like a decent man. He probably lives comfortably, but probably still has a mortgage to pay, and if he could pick up £30,000 he would be tempted. As would many others in his position.

Agents are the greediest of these greedy people. Sure they are. They get money for not much. If agents were removed the game would work itself out, and wouldn’t lose these vast sums of money. I imagine there are some good agents, some scummy agents, and some helpless fools like Craig Allardyce who don’t appear to be of much use to anyone.

Footballers are touted around by agents, and not necessarily with their club’s permission. Well, sure, we all suspected this anyway. Ashley Cole’s situation looks worse after this, lending incredulity to his claims that the Chelsea meeting last year was a coincidence. I feel sorry for Nathan Porritt, who at 15 should be allowed to get on with his football at a club that is known for developing young talent, but again, are we surprised by the knowledge that talented youngsters are valued by ambitious teams to the extent that they will make iffy payments to get them? Not really.

We got an interesting programme, we got some names and we didn’t get some names. Harry Redknapp has nothing much to worry about on this evidence (in that he might well be guilty, but he’s kept his nose clean when it matters), Sam Allardyce will be somewhat concerned, and whoever the 5-6 others are, well, we just don’t know.

It’s a messed up world, football, but I still enjoy what happens on the pitch and that’s what matters to me.

“The young footballer today, of course, faces many more counter-attractions than his father, and infinitely more than his grandfather, while there is more money in his pocket, too.  The cinema has been one of the worst enemies of football, and television will be less helpful still, while the constant building on open sites has deprived young players of many an improvised football pitch”

From Brian Glanville, Soccer Nemesis, 1955

The more you learn about the past, the more you realise that with the odd exception, things haven’t really changed at all.   This from Glanville’s excellent book about how insular England have been overtaken by more cerebral foreigners on the football field… which is obviously still relevant today too.