There’s nothing the British public likes more than a lovable rogue. From the immortal George Cole characters from St Trinians in the 50s and Minder in the 80s to modern football agents, the sight of a dodgy geezer in a camel coat sitting in a greasy spoon, the Sporting Life’s racing tips circled with steam rising from a cracked mug, are part and parcel of our way of life. So would somebody please tell me, what is all the hullabaloo concerning shady deals from football?

We are not talking about a gymkhana organised by the sewing circle of the parish hall ladies’ committee. We are talking about a multi-billion pound industry which influences government and organised crime, where . . .

  • Players are multi-national brands;
  •  Supporters are legally mugged in daylight to pay £10 for a programme and £6 for a hot dog at the new Wembley;
  • The BBC does not only indulge its fantasies with a plethora of ‘sports’ correspondents, but also a raft of sports’ news journalists;
  • Every word uttered by certain managers is subjected to forensic analysis.
Believe me, I have only just got the dust off my lips. But you get my point. So when I read that former Mr Plod, Lord Stevens, has named 17 transfers and five Premier League clubs in his million-page report into alleged transfer irregularities, I didn’t even bother warning the people in the room as I broke wind.
'As an ex-cop, Stevens should know that if you really want to nail someone, get them in the dock with a case against them so watertight that the most expensive barrister in the world would take off his or her wig and suggest the assembled court retire for a Pimms'


Deals involving Chelsea, Middlesbrough, Bolton, Portsmouth and Newcastle were all highlighted in the report, but surprise surprise, our old bobby on the beat found no evidence of irregular payments to club officials or players and certainly nothing to pass on to Messrs Sue Grabbit and Run to instigate legal proceedings.

Of course, we have been down this road before. Last year, the BBC’s flagship – more like an old boat you hire in the park – programme Panorama ‘exposed’ Sam Allardyce as being part of some worldwide conspiracy involving his son Craig. You’d have thought these two chaps, who would not look out of place in the queue at the grubbiest chippie in Bolton, had been plotting to poison the water supply of Shanghai. What the programme implied, but of course did not have the courage to actually say, was that this Lirrle and Large partnership had used their position of manager and agent to ‘fast-track’ certain deals through.

Allardyce and Graeme Souness were mentioned in Lord Stevens' report along with 15 agents, including ‘super agent’ Pini Zahavi – and Stevens has recommended that FIFA look at Zahavi’s practices.

But for goodness sake, why? As an ex-cop, Stevens, more than anyone, should know that if you really want to nail someone, get them in the dock with a case against them so watertight that the most expensive barrister in the world (and here we are talking money that would make a Premiership footballer cringe) would take off his or her wig and suggest the assembled court retire for a Pimms.

And herein lies the problem. The agents have, er, not broken the law. They are agents, for goodness sake. Their job spec says they have to get the best deal for their client, they have to wheel and deal, meet a few people here and there, make a few calls, touch their noses, know what I mean.

Stevens was concerned that Zahavi and another agent, Barry Silkman, were ‘uncooperative’. Silkman, a former journeyman player turned agent, gave a redoubtable defence of his work on BBC’s Newsnight programme on Friday night. In my book he has done absolutely nothiong wrong. What people don't like is the fact that he and other agents can seemingly make shed-loads of money for arranging transfers. You know what, I don't like lawyers charging hundreds of pounds an hour for  sending a fax. But it doesn't mean all lawyers are villains....does it?

There is one rule for acceptable 'dodgy' dealings; you know the sort, a top Soho PR agency ‘manages’ to get a positive article about a multi-national client on the front page of a national newspaper. How is the editor ‘influenced’ to do that, I wonder? But that’s OK, of course, because, like acceptable tax dodging by the middle classes through creative accounting, it’s nice and clean, even though it is of course actually stealing money from the government.

Nouveau-riche football managers and agents, in their mock-tudor houses with gold rings like milk-bottle tops, have been in on the working-class equivalent of tax dodging since biblical times. In the really old days, players would find envelopes full of rectangular pieces of paper with the Queen’s (or King’s) head – it was part and parcel of the game. Today, it could be the case that there is a bit of jiggery-pokery going on (no proof, just a hunch). So what; if I could make a few bob out of arranging a transfer I’d be on the gravy train myself.

And don't tell me the fans who are desperate to see the big names at their clubs are bothered one hoot about all this. All they want is the name on the shirt, the points on the table and a signed picture of the team captain, signed and framed above the bar in their local. End of story.