In 2007, then Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie was arrested — along with then manager Harry Redknapp, then club owner Milan Mandaric (now owner of Sheffield Wednesday), agent Willie McKay and former Portsmouth player Amdy Faye — over allegations of corruption. The five men were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting. Last year Redknapp, who is the current manager at Tottenham, was charged with “two counts of cheating the public revenue of an estimated £40,000 after voluntarily attending London’s Bishopsgate police station”. According to The Independent: Charges concerned two payments, totalling 295,000 US dollars, alleged to have been made from Mandaric to Redknapp via a bank account in Monaco, evading the tax and National Insurance contributions due between April 1, 2002 and November 28, 2007. Mandaric, now chairman of Leicester, was charged with tax evasion relating to the payment of 295,000 US dollars to another person via a Monaco bank account, evading tax and National Insurance. Storrie was charged with concealing a signing-on fee for ex-Portsmouth player Amdy Faye by paying it into the midfielder’s bank account. The allegation related to the transfer of Faye from Auxerre to Fratton Park for £1.5million in August 2003. For his part, Redknapp sought to have the case against him dismissed in November last year. But according to these court documents, the Crown Prosecution Service sought the assistance of the US Department of Justice in September 2010 relating to the transfer of $295,000 from the Florida bank account of a company called First Star International to an account held by Redknapp in Monaco. Also included in a list given by the CPS was one payment by “Rosie 47? of $207,433.73 on February 12, 2008 to Redknapp. This payment was two months after he was arrested in November 2007. The source of another lodgment in June 2002, for $145,000, is unclear. The CPS requested US authorities to assist them in obtaining information from the bank used by First Star International – the City National Bank of Florida.“
Trouble is, they would want a jury to try and understand that in court. The issue would get so clouded that beyond reasonable doubt would be impossible and they would walk.
The three lowest spenders included two promoted sides in Swansea (£248,000) and Norwich (£710,000), with Wigan having spent £659,000. Agents fees! And how are we supposed to recoup that money? Its has got to stop before even the middle classes won't be able to afford to go to a match.
