Shock horror, Sam Allardyce is corrupt. Those with even a passing interest in English football surely already knew it, but the fact has been reemphasised over the past week as part of an investigation conducted by the Daily Telegraph, which led with footage showing Allardyce discussing how to get around bans on third-party ownership. Allied to the dubious money-making nature of his meeting with fictitious Asian businessmen, and some derogatory comments concerning Roy Hodgson, Gary Neville, and the Royals, Big Sam has been forced to relinquish his position as England manager after a meagre sixty-seven days and one solitary match.
Several other managers, coaches, and chairmen have been implicated, predominantly from the English Football League, as the Telegraph exposé trundles on. But Allardyce’s curtailed reign will surely remain the top story, having turned the England national side into what former captain Alan Shearer has described as a ‘laughing stock’. As mealy-mouthed British pundits contrive to defend one of their own, questions should be asked of the Football Association, who have known about Allardyce’s tendencies for a decade at least.
When two football managers claimed in January 2006 that bribery was rife within the sport, the FA established an inquiry to be headed by former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Stevens. In September 2006 the BBC broadcast an episode of Panorama, one year in the making, which alleged that prominent managers and coaches were accepting backhanders from agents and illicitly tapping players up. The allegations centred on Sam Allardyce and his son Craig, who was acting as a sort of middleman for player transfers at Bolton Wanderers, Harry Redknapp, and Redknapp’s assistant at Portsmouth Kevin Bond.
Lord Stevens’ inquiry was extended following the Panorama broadcast, and in June 2007 he released his final report. It raised suspicions around seventeen transfers, which Stevens had investigated thoroughly but felt unable to sign off as legitimate, citing irregular payments and conflicts of interest. These transfers involved Sam and Craig Allardyce, Harry Redknapp, and the agents Willie McKay, Barry Silkman, and Pinhas Zahavi.
But despite the scope and detail of the Stevens report, the FA proceeded to do nothing with its findings. They sat on the report for seventeen months, claiming all the while that they were working through its pages and conducting the necessary follow-ups, before handing the case over to FIFA in November 2008, arguing that as a national body they lacked the infrastructure to properly investigate. It took FIFA another ten months to decide that the FA had dwelt on the case for too long, declaring in September 2009 that due to the time elapsed since the initial findings, it was not in a position to consider any of the complaints.
The seventeen transfers highlighted by Stevens have never been signed off. Sam Allardyce blustered something about suing the BBC, but in this instance he refrained from following through. Questions continued to be raised regarding his conduct, notably in 2014 when he was accused of trying to coerce Ravel Morrison to sign with his agent Mark Curtis. By appointing Allardyce back in July, the FA were handing their most prestigious role – and a £3 million a year contract – to someone who by all indications was clearly crooked.
So when British pundits, a body made up of mostly thick and bitter ex-professionals, talk of Allardyce being naive, foolish, or loose-tongued, what they really mean is totally and utterly corrupt. And indeed whenever someone like Allardyce is praised for being a good football man, it tends to suggest that they’re a British ex-player probably on the take. When commentators discussing the current scandal bemoan Allardyce surrounding himself with the wrong people, what is left implicit is that he was at the centre of corruption for more than ten years.
Big Sam or Fat Sam, the hardy pie eater brushed away the crumbs to state on his departure that ‘entrapment has won’. But the Telegraph conceived their investigation, and picked their targets, with every reason to believe that they would receive plenty of bites. When another former England failure Steve McClaren says ‘it could happen to any of us’ and ‘Sam innocently paid the price’, it raises concerns about his own behaviour, but then he’s always talking Double Dutch. And when pundits persist to proclaim the need for an English England manager, they might as well be hailing a dodo, because aside from Eddie Howe and Sean Dyche, neither of whom are interested, good English football managers no longer exist.
