By Jacque Talbot
Championship managers such as Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, assistant Barnsley manager Tommy Wright and Leeds United football owner Massimo Cellino have also hit unwanted headlines with allegations of malpractice.
Sam Allardyce was secretly filmed at Manchester’s lucrative restaurants San Carlo and Wings giving advice to undercover reporters posing as investors on how to avoid payment through third party player ownership, all in exchange for a sizeable £400,000 fee – something which is against the Football Association’s regulations.
The FA held a hurried meeting with the shamed manager, with the two parties concluding that ‘Big Sam’s’ role as England boss was untenable. The 61-year-old has since left his job by mutual consent.
Since then, The Telegraph have released further hidden camera footage of Queens Park Rangers manager, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink asking for a £55k to act for a sports company proposing to sell players to his club. The QPR owners have reportedly stood by the ex-Chelsea man as he took training with his team as usual this afternoon.
Barnsley’s assistant manager, Tommy Wright was allegedly filmed taking an envelope of cash in return for helping persuade Barnsley to sign players from a made-up Far East company. He now has been suspended by the South Yorkshire Championship side “pending an internal investigation into these allegations”.
Leeds United owner, Massimo Cellino was also filmed by undercover reporters offering to sell 20% of the club to help the fake ‘businessmen’ get round third party rules, a rule which has been put in place for eight years ever since the Premier League likened it to “indentured slavery”.
By having large footballing names like Jose Mourinho and Ian Wright already openly sympathise with the perpetrators, it may seems to some that an embedded fabric of corruption is running through the English sport at the highest level, leaving the fans wondering just how far it goes and to what extent they can trust their childhood heroes.
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