8 Premier League Managers Implicated in the Telegraph's Corruption Investigation
The League Managers Association has urged the Daily Telegraph to make "full and complete unconditional disclosure" of its information after the newspaper alleged eight current and former Premier League managers have taken bribes over player transfers.
Based on revelations made by several agents to undercover Telegraph reporters posing as representatives of a Far East firm that wanted to invest in players, two Championship managers were also alleged to be open to "bungs."
Implications were also made to the undercover reporters that various managers have asked for prostitutes to be paid for.
The Telegraph claimed it had "agreed to give all relevant transcripts to the Football Association and has also passed information to the police."
But, per an LMA statement (via Sky News' Paul Kelso), the publication has yet to do so and is delaying an investigation into the claims:
None of the managers have been named, while the Telegraph report relayed vehement denials from some of those accused.
The most prominent of the agents interviewed in the Telegraph's piece is Pino Pagliara—an unlicensed Italian who was banned from football for five years for match-fixing in 2005—who claimed: "In football everything is underneath the table…I mastered that."
The accusations of widespread corruption in the English game come hot on the heels of Sam Allardyce leaving his post as England manager after a Telegraph sting exposed him advising undercover reporters how to circumvent FA rules.
Pagliara reportedly described numerous "bent" managers who asked for and received kickbacks in relation to completed transfers.
He said that one "well-known manager" would use "a little coffee" as code for illicit compensation if a deal went through, addding: "There’s one thing I’ve always been able to rely on, and that is the greed of general managers."
Another of the agents filmed by the undercover reporters was Scott McGarvey, a former Manchester United player.
McGarvey named four managers who were willing to take bribes—many of them reportedly matching those named by Pagliara and his business partner, Dax Price—and said he had personally paid two bosses, revealing one who he'd paid £5,000 in "readies" for a transfer.
Pagliara responded to the release of the report by saying he had never, in fact, paid money to any managers and had "fabricated" the stories to impress the reporters, while a spokesman for McGarvey offered a similar denial of wrongdoing.
