EXCLUSIVE: BBC Bung storm

 

Beeb bung names revealed

 

By Rob Beasley

 

THE News of the World can reveal the football clubs, managers and staff targeted in the TV bung row tearing soccer apart.

 

High-profile staff at Bolton, Portsmouth and Middlesbrough have had letters from the BBC's Panorama programme telling them they have been suckered into an elaborate sting aimed at exposing the bung culture in English football.

 

Among the BBC's targets are Pompey manager Harry Redknapp, ex-player Kevin Bond, now at Newcastle, and Craig Allardyce, son of Bolton boss Sam.

 

Others involved are soccer agent Peter Harrison, Sven Goran Eriksson's manager Athole Still and England star Stewart Downing's agent Ian Elliott.

 

Undercover

 

They were among a long list of soccer personalities introduced to a German businessman called Knut Aufdemberge.

 

He claimed to represent a mega-rich American tycoon, Paul Silverman, who wanted to launch a new, money-rich sports agency in the UK called Dynamic Soccer.

 

What the football men did not know was that the two "businessmen" were really undercover BBC investigators.

 

The pair secretly recorded meetings and conversations over a six-month period.

 

They tried to persuade some of their targets to offer huge sums of money to Premiership managers illegally in a bid to involve them financially in the new agency.

 

All the BBC targets vigorously deny any wrong-doing.

 

They insist they refused to offer or accept bribes.

 

Harrison even sent an e-mail to Aufdemberge last April threatening to report him.

 

He then wrote to the FA two weeks ago, warning them that two mysterious businessmen were attempting to bribe Premiership managers.

 

But before that, Harrison helped set up a meeting between Redknapp, Bond and Aufdemberge at Portsmouth's training complex.

 

We contacted both Harrison and Redknapp last night and both refused to comment. The Portsmouth manager has made it known that he has contacted his lawyers to defend his reputation.

 

One man who did go on the record was Ian Elliott, who insisted he had done nothing wrong.

 

Buy

 

He explained: "I agreed to a meeting because I was told these people wanted to buy my company, Elliott Sports Management, for ??1.2million. It all seemed too good to be true.

 

"The meeting did not last long, about 20 minutes I think.

 

"Afterwards I told my accountant and my lawyer that things just didn't add up.

 

"And I must stress that the subject of paying managers or players was never raised by me or by them."

 

Bolton boss Sam Allardyce is privately furious that BBC bosses tried to take advantage of his son.

 

Craig Allardyce quit being a sports agent last month amid concerns he could be compromising his father's position in the game.

 

The BBC sting began last November when Aufdemberge first contacted Harrison.

 

The pair had a number of meetings and dinners to discuss the project. Aufdemberge claimed Silverman wanted to form a "super" agency in England.

 

His plan was to unite a number of top English agents who would work together to take on the game's biggest names.

 

Dynamic Soccer claimed they would pay managers cash bungs of around ??200,000 to get involved in their company.

 

But the News of the World understands that all the BBC's targets refused, insisting the plot would breach FA rules.

 

Harrison claims he was told he alone could earn a staggering ??1.8m if he could help to launch the agency successfully.

 

The agent was so keen to cash in he even wrote a detailed business plan for Silverman to put into operation and also recommended a number of agents who might be interested.

 

Corruption

 

He suggested Ian Elliott, Craig Allardyce and Athole Still.

 

A BBC insider said: "All the agents fell for the story.

 

"They had no idea the company was not for real or that the two individuals were in fact reporters.

 

"The tactics were to persuade them to offer Premiership managers large sums of money to get involved in the company. It was hoped it would uncover widespread corruption.

 

"Now there is a big legal row over what Panorama can or cannot screen."

 

FA chiefs have vowed to investigate, providing the BBC shows them its evidence.

 

The programme is due to be screened later this month ??? providing it gets the green light from lawyers.

Thing is though, this kind of thing has happened in all walks of life before - and the media, once they sink their teeth into it, will settle for nothing less than BSA resigning from his job. I can see it now. Bstards are out to get us!

That raised my eyebrows the highest too.....

 

And mine, in fact I was so eyebrow-lifted I had to text it to someone.

 

You call that amateur-hatchet job a tanning?

 

Or too thick to think independently of the media?

 

Think Mixu only ever turns up to support the N person. Funny that.

As I can see it! We are fuccked!

Not good. I thought, OK we are on first, just a quick mention in the first few minutes, but Oh no a f*cking full hour on Bolton!

 

This wont go away for some time. If anyone thinks this isn't serious then think again.

 

Anyway can anyone bung me a few quid, im skint!

 

I don't think it is that serious. They have proved nothing against the club or Sam Allardyce. Everyone involved had retracted their statements by the end of the program.

 

If I had a team of people and had spent hundreds of thousands of pounds and came up with that, heads would roll. Crappiest investigative journalism I have ever seen.

Completely spineless targeting of a small club.

 

Smallest fanbase to p*ss off, a manager who is universally unpopular. If they had 18 names why did they manage only 2????????

 

Or are they trying to justify fleecing license payers for a massive chunk of money for 9 months. At least the agents have the good grace to be shifty behind closed doors.

 

Nothing more than hyperbole and substanceless diorreah.

There's usually no smoke without fire........however I'd like to stress that the BBC have nothing at all on us, just a load of agents talking crap! I thought it was amazing how they continually didn't implicate any other clubs other than us! Why **** out every other team?

 

Do you not think it's strange that the time the guy met big Sam he didn't wear his camera? Concerns over stadium security my arse! I'm interested to see the back pages tomorrow though, we'll be made to look very bad indeed!

Of course its serious, but the BBC or the FA inquiry are going to have to come up with more than a couple of bragging agents to prove any wrong doing.

 

I just hope Sam doesn't decide to walk away because he can't be arsed with it all.

I was expecting the programme to be far worse. Aft6er the first 10 minutes I thought they must have Sam on camara taking cash but they had nothing other than hearsay (not the crap band).

 

Chelsea will probably lose points over it

 

 

Chelsea sould lose points But how many the rules state only 3 pts to be deducted but look over in italy for match fixing teams get relegated.

 

Getting players to other clubs is giving a distinct advantage to the top teams who can get the best players in my eyes still cheating minimum 15pts and i did say minimum (wether youth team players or not)

Thing is though, this kind of thing has happened in all walks of life before - and the media, once they sink their teeth into it, will settle for nothing less than BSA resigning from his job. I can see it now. Bstards are out to get us!

 

If he resigns it implies guilt. If he has nothing to hide he will fight these allegations.

Did they get Sam on camera accepting a bung? Did they f??ckerslike. 8 months of investigation and they get 2 or 3 lines which MIGHT make Sam look bent.

 

If they can get to so many folk then I am convinced they had Sam as well, and he gave them NOTHING, in fact he gave them something which would have ruined the whole show.

 

Mike Newell said that 2 of the 18 managers mentioned by the BBC to him were bent.

If is was Sam and Harry, the BBC would have said so. But they didnt. Wonder why? A great bit of selective editing.

 

The BBC have made a good attempt at throwing a lot of shit knowing some will stick, but there is f??ck all concrete to confirm that Sam has taken money.

 

Harrison has used Craig to get his players noticed by Sam, Craig has gone Billy Big Time and made a pickle of it all.

 

And if I was Gartside I would have tried to do a deal for JJ as well knowing the seed of doubt was alredy there and could get 5M euros for a player in the last year of his contract.

BBC1 programme, being featured on BBC 1 News at 10 and followed up on BBC 5live.

 

 

How much attention are Sky, ITV etc. giving it?

Did they get Sam on camera accepting a bung? Did they f??ckerslike. 8 months of investigation and they get 2 or 3 lines which MIGHT make Sam look bent.

 

If they can get to so many folk then I am convinced they had Sam as well, and he gave them NOTHING, in fact he gave them something which would have ruined the whole show.

 

Mike Newell said that 2 of the 18 managers mentioned by the BBC to him were bent.

If is was Sam and Harry, the BBC would have said so. But they didnt. Wonder why? A great bit of selective editing.

 

The BBC have made a good attempt at throwing a lot of shit knowing some will stick, but there is f??ck all concrete to confirm that Sam has taken money.

 

Harrison has used Craig to get his players noticed by Sam, Craig has gone Billy Big Time and made a pickle of it all.

 

And if I was Gartside I would have tried to do a deal for JJ as well knowing the seed of doubt was alredy there and could get 5M euros for a player in the last year of his contract.

 

 

They got more from Frank Arnersen at chelsea about his tapping up

the only reason why alladyce was the target of the show was because they had his son mouthing off, and when it came to the crunch it didn't sound like his dad knew that much about it after all

 

they had more "evidence" on redknapp but that barely got 5 minutes

 

without craig on camera the show would've been about arnesen which was more damning that any of the stuff they claimed to have had on sam

Funny how the big old beeb mainly picked on two of the "smaller" clubs nowt against the bigger rich boys...scared of counter legal claims etc.

 

As for those big transfer deals...funny how they were players no one else seemed to want

Please be careful what you say in this thread and indeed in any forum.

 

There is some heavy 'sh??te' going to come of this and we don't want to be 'invited' to shut down the site or taken to court.

 

Posting facts for referencing is allowed, but source your reference please.

 

Some post may be removed, you have been warned.

 

I hope you understand the sites position.

 

 

 

 

 

My points of reference were Ricky Gervais, Stephen Marchent, and Keith Chegwin.

 

 

 

 

 

By teh way, what happened - I was watching football instead

Did they get Sam on camera accepting a bung? Did they f??ckerslike. 8 months of investigation and they get 2 or 3 lines which MIGHT make Sam look bent.

 

If they can get to so many folk then I am convinced they had Sam as well, and he gave them NOTHING, in fact he gave them something which would have ruined the whole show.

 

Mike Newell said that 2 of the 18 managers mentioned by the BBC to him were bent.

If is was Sam and Harry, the BBC would have said so. But they didnt. Wonder why? A great bit of selective editing.

 

The BBC have made a good attempt at throwing a lot of shit knowing some will stick, but there is f??ck all concrete to confirm that Sam has taken money.

 

Harrison has used Craig to get his players noticed by Sam, Craig has gone Billy Big Time and made a pickle of it all.

 

And if I was Gartside I would have tried to do a deal for JJ as well knowing the seed of doubt was alredy there and could get 5M euros for a player in the last year of his contract.

 

Spot on Smiffs.

Trouble is, we are likely to be a distant voice in what will surely become a massive media bburial of Sam.

 

If he's guilty then show the crime, but name other names too. If you've no proof, fcuk off and do a documentary about hospitals or school dinners.

 

Spider - cancelling his direct debit for bbc license until Sam is shown taking the cash.

Am in agreeance with everyone here, what I saw did not incriminate BSA in any way (did miss a bit travelling home from work) the BBC add 2 and 2 and come up with a load of b@llocks!

 

If indeed quite a number of clubs are taking bungs then they too need to be named, if this is due to not enough evidence to incriminate them then the beeb shouldn't make an assumption that they are.

 

As for Craig, doesn't everyone big themselves up at times, trying to be Johnny Big Boy?

 

At what point does anyone think that BSA was aware of the content of the programme?

http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8...1520422,00.html

 

Bolton manager Sam Allardyce insisted he will "fight" allegations by the BBC's Panorama programme that he has received illegal payments.

 

'Undercover: Football's Dirty Secrets' claimed that Allardyce and his son Craig, a football agent, were given bungs to facilitate player transfers.

 

Speaking after Bolton's win at Walsall, Allardyce said: "I'm aware of the situation. Because I haven't seen anything of the programme I need to have a look at that and to take a view of that before I make any comment whatsoever.

 

"But if there are things saying wrong about Sam Allardyce believe you me, I will be fighting them."

BBC1 programme, being featured on BBC 1 News at 10 and followed up on BBC 5live.

How much attention are Sky, ITV etc. giving it?

 

 

Not a lot.

 

Got 30 seconds on Granada at the end of the news and about 2 minutes on You're on skysports, and that focussed on the FA enquiry.

 

Will get a bit of airplay on Skysports news but they've got loads of time to fill.

It looked bad at the start of the programme but the longer it went on the less it proved,Even the sting operation turned out to be nothing because they did not have anybody to give the money to.

At what point does anyone think that BSA was aware of the content of the programme?

 

The day beforew Craig quit as an agent

sky will probably do a countdown to sam's resignation

 

still

 

what's the odds sam or redknapp doing an interview post match on monday night?

The day beforew Craig quit as an agent

 

Same day I suspect Jules

 

Redknapp knew full well what was being broadcast about him, word for word.

 

With Sam, I suspect they made last minute editing decisions, therefore he didn't know what would be broadcast, and couldn't say anything.

 

Craig is a right thick pussy, that's the long and short of it. But hey, if you need your dad to sort your life out at his age then that's not surprising.

for the beeb not a lot!

 

nor from any of the coaches players etc!

It was car crash TV,and a load of sensationalist crap.

 

Gartside wanted to tout Okocha - So what

 

A couple of agents saying Sam likes a deal - So what

 

Was Sam seen on CCTV receiving brown envelopes? - No

 

Craig Allardyce doing business with his dad? - Oh fcuk

I doubt Chelsea will suffer any trouble because Frank Arnesen (sp?) - from the evidence/tape shown tonight - can quite easily offer an excuse that he was speaking hypothetically about a deal for the 15 year old Middlesbrough lad and that the agent had omitted to tell him he was still under contract. We all know he was making a deal but he never actually said "We would like to offer.." instead the agent prompted a segmented quote of "We could do ??150k over three years..." It was such a vague conversation that Arnesen can slip away of any blame it using a basis of ignorance.

 

Same maybe goes for Liverpool but the BBC didn't seem to want to show us much of that evidence despite it being hugely important.