Former Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson allegedly
fixed a football match with a corrupt agent who gave him a £30,000 gold Rolex,
a court heard today.
Football agent, Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Pagliara, 64, made the
claims to an undercover reporter posing as a businesswoman looking to invest in
football players, jurors were told.
Pagliara is on trial for bribery at Southwark Crown Court alongside
assistant head coach of Barnsley Football Club Tommy Wright and fellow football
agent Dax Price. All three deny the charges.
The trio were charged following allegations of corruption
published by the Daily Telegraph in 2016, one of which led to Sam Allardyce
resigning as England manager.
He said the legendary manager fixed a champions league game
against Italian giants Juventus and alleged Ferguson pocketed money from
transfer deals, Southwark Crown Court heard.
Pagliara and fellow agent Dax Price allegedly tried to
“impress” Claire Newell by arranging meetings with prominent footballing
figures such as Steve McLaren, Harry Redknapp, and manager Neil Warnock,
prosecuter Brian O’Neill QC told Southwark Crown Court.
O'Neil said Pagliara claimed that “99 percent of the people
in football if they weren’t in football, would be selling second-hand cars.”
Pagliara was said to be“furious” with Redknapp for
suggesting the reporter should buy a football club instead of using a legal
loophole to get around a ban on third-party ownership of players in England
during a meeting in July 2016, the court heard.
Describing another meeting, Mr O’Neill said: “Towards the
end of the meeting Pagliara launched into what could only be described as a
diatribe of Sir Alex Ferguson, accusing him of having conspired with Pagliara
to fix the result of a football match between Juventus, a club which Pagliara
was associated with, and Manchester United in the Champions League for which
Pagliara had thanked him with a gold 30 grand Rolex watch.
“Pagliara went on to accuse Sir Alex Ferguson of having
taken money as part of transfer deals. He claimed that he had paid Ferguson
before.”
He added: “To the outside world, the plan being espoused by
Mr. Pagliara, it would look as though the player in question was owned by the
football club in Belgium when actually the player was owned by a third party.
“And that, said Pagliara, was the plan that he wanted to end
upbringing to England because that’s where the money is.
“He went to speak about placing players in Italian clubs
where he had various connections before moving them to England.
“‘You have to have an offshore account somewhere and that’s
where we do it. For example Antonio Conte [then head coach at Chelsea[ has
winked at us and said, “yeah, I want that player, is there a little coffee for
me Pino?”’
“A little coffee, she said. ‘Yeah, that’s what he’ll say:
yeah of course there is and now I’m negotiating a coffee as well and we are not
talking about a double espresso.’
“He went on to say he would disguise it as a consultancy
agreement by another trusted individual.
“‘Claire, I’ve opened so many Swiss bank accounts for
managers that you would not believe’.”
Tommy Wright, 53, then assistant head coach of Championship
club Barnsley, accepted a cash bribe to get players to sign up with the agents,
the court was told.
Undercover reporter Claire Newell and her team set up a fake
company and told Pagliara and Price that she wanted to invest in football
players, jurors heard.
The court was told that they arranged for a £5,000 bribe to
be handed in an envelope to Scots-born Wright, who played top-flight football
for Leeds, Leicester City, Oldham, and Middlesbrough.
Wright, of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, denies two counts of
accepting a bribe, while Pagliara, 64, of Bury, Greater Manchester, and Price,
48, of Sittingbourne, Kent, deny two counts of paying and facilitating a bribe.
The prosecutor said of Mr Price: “He went on to say this:
‘There are certain people like Harry Redknapp; he needs looking after. There
are certain people like Neil Warnock.’
“It’s no part of this prosecution to malign those
individuals about whom they spoke.
“These people were not present when these things were being
said about them and were in no position therefore to challenge, deny or rebut
those allegations.
“However, it’s significant evidence in the case of the
defendant who said the words and any other defendant who was present and did
not disassociate themselves from those words.
“And that’s because it’s evidence of that defendant’s
knowledge or belief of corruption within football in this country and elsewhere
and his willingness in just to condone such practices, but also to embrace and
exploit them and that’s why this evidence is relevant and admissible.”
