Allardyce: I've never been offered a bung
Sam Allardyce insists he has never been offered a "bung" in a transfer deal and is happy to put that on record with the Lord Stevens inquiry into alleged corruption in the game.
The BBC’s Panorama programme Undercover: Football’s Dirty Secrets in September claimed that Allardyce and his son Craig, until recently a football agent, were given illegal payments to facilitate player transfers.
Allardyce and his son deny the allegations, and the Wanderers boss is considering legal action against the BBC over the programme.
The programme was aired during the inquiry by Lord Stevens and his investigation team Quest into the 362 transfers which were completed between January 1, 2004 and January 31, 2006.
Allardyce told Sky after the game against Portsmouth – Bolton’s first after the Panorama programme was aired – that they were “out of order” for asking him whether he had ever been offered a bung in a transfer deal, but admitted: “It’s a fair question in the right circumstances and it will be fair if the Premiership’s Quest investigations team or the FA ask it.
“If Quest ask whether I’ve been offered an illegal payment, I will answer them. That answer will be no.”
Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police commissioner, presented his team’s initial findings on October 2, stating that 39 transfers involving eight clubs warranted further investigation, with the Premier League extending the inquiry by a further two months to facilitate that investigation.
Allardyce is not worried in the least that the Panorama allegations will affect the way Lord Stevens carries out his inquiry.
“I have never met Lord Stevens, but why should Lord Stevens, who is a very intelligent man, want to come and speak to me after that BBC programme?” Allardyce said.
“He is a man of evidence, an ex-copper, and if he saw that programme he must have been saying ‘what the hell was that? A trial by media? Guilty until proven innocent?'
“I haven’t been exposed yet I am under the most focus and that makes me extremely angry. I don’t envisage any problems.”
Allardyce is adamant he has nothing to hide, but accepted it was possible the club might have breached a technical rule in the transfer of players.
“I know football rules but secretaries and chief executives know the other rules,” he told The Sun.
“They handle the buying and the selling and the transactions and transfer of money, as well as the drawing up and signing of the contracts.
“I don’t know if we’ve broken a rule. I would suspect we haven’t. But if there’s a slight infringement, I don’t know. People at the club have done their job.”
