Stevens gives 'bung' evidence to police

14 April 2012

Lord Stevens has passed evidence to the police, customs officers and the Inland Revenue in his efforts to expose corruption in football — but he still left himself open to allegations of a whitewash.

The former Metropolitan Police chief failed to name and shame a single member of the football community after spending nine months and £800,000 on the Premier League inquiry.

• The blame game

However, he defended the lack of transparency on the grounds that he could prejudice ongoing investigations.

When asked if money was being obtained crookedly from football, he boldly declared "Yes", and revealed that evidence concerning a number of transfers had been handed over to the authorities.

Stevens also said 17 of the original 362 transfers he investigated had not yet been signed off and his Quest team have been given new terms of reference by the Premier League to continue in tandem with the FA.

He did, however, take the extraordinary step of effectively clearing all the clubs, managers and officials linked with the inquiry, even though further investigation could yet implicate them.

Stevens, whose rhetoric was far more impressive than his results, blamed agents and FA incompetence for the bung culture that clearly exists in football.

The FA issued a guarded statement but expressed their displeasure at the way Stevens attacked the governing body's compliance unit. Their main objection was that, of the 32 recommendations that are relevant to them, they are already implementing 31 of them.

FA chief executive Brian Barwick said: "The overwhelming majority of Lord Stevens's recommendations had already been formulated by the FA prior to his inquiry. Many were introduced as part of the existing domestic agents' regulations and others will form part of the new regulations which come into force next summer.

"The need to prevent dual representation, which Lord Stevens identifies as the key conflict of interest in this area, is something that has been driven by the FA for over two years."

Stevens said eight major agents remain under the microscope, and revealed that "nearly all" of the 17 transfers that form the new investigation concern players who have been transferred to the Premiership from abroad and involved money-trails to the continent.

The most disturbing aspect of yesterday's press conference in London was the apparent conflict between Stevens and Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore.

Stevens refused to comment on whether he would have liked to have been more transparent in detailing which clubs, managers and agents had caused his investigators most concern.

He gave a telling smile and then passed the question on to Scudamore.

While Stevens said his 39 recommendations should be implemented "like yesterday", Scudamore dismissed them as "a very useful road map for the future governance of transfers".

Stevens said: "This report has been extremely detailed. It has allowed us to clear 345 of the 362 transfers and therefore does not indicate criminal, endemic wrongdoing across the Premier League.

"We require co-operation from a small but significant number of agents. Their failure to respond his resulted in the delay to this inquiry.

"Every one of these recommendations must be implemented. The future of the game depends on it. The single most important recommendation is the creation of an independent financial unit that should be focused on the transfer market alone.

"The benefit of this clearing-house system is obvious. In our view, the FA failed to review the information provided to them as thoroughly as they should have done."

Scudamore said: "We are not in the business of charging clubs without evidence. We have a club meeting on February 8, which will be the proper time to give a full response to the recommendations."

To add further fuel to suggestions that there was friction between Stevens and Scudamore, Channel 4 News last night claimed to have seen a confidential memo allegedly written by a senior director of the Premier League saying that the clubs had successfully put pressure on Stevens to water down his recommendations. These claims were rejected by the Quest team.

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