Harry Redknapp's Trial: Why He Has Gained Even More of My Respect

If there was any manager in football who could be charged with tax evasion and dodgy dealing, you would bet your hat on it that it would be Harry Redknapp. For so long this manager has been the master of last minute wheeling and dealing, with his biggest rabbit out of the hat being the transfer deadline signing of play-maker Rafael van der Vaart from Spanish giants Real Madrid. This has lead him to acquire the reputation similar to the Dickens character Fagan, the man with a cockney accent and a quick turn of hand.

Redknapp has been charged with stashing away money in a bank account in Monaco, under the code name Rosie 47, just to avoid paying tax on it. It is alleged that the money, £187,000, was received from former Portsmouth Chairman Milan Mandaric.

However, the Tottenham manager has maintained innocence at all times, and, during a police interview in 2009 he remarked that he has the writing ability of a child and the technological understanding of a grandmother: “I have a big problem, I can’t write, so I don’t keep anything.... I can’t work a computer; I don’t know what an email is. I have never sent a fax or a text message.” 

The thing is, it just makes me respect and admire Redknapp even more. Before the trial started I assumed he was guilty, more for the fact that he is a cockney with a reputation. If he was a Geordie, or maybe someone from the West Country, I would have sided with him in an instant, and that makes me feel bad.

But now I just find it incredible that a man with such a lack of writing ability could have succeeded all he has in such a cut throat world. It was also revealed that he hadn’t received payment for his column in The Sun for 18 months; this too, is an amazing discovery for someone who can handle the advances of Chelsea for his star man, Modric, so shrewdly.

At the end of it all, I hope he is found innocent, not least of all because I think his new look Tottenham team has been superbly entertaining this year—and who would want to ruin that?