Stevens bung inquiry reports 'serious breaches'
08/06/2007 |
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Lord Stevens' inquiry into illicit payments in football has reported to the Premier League that there have been "serious breaches" of transfer-market regulations. His findings were delivered in the final report of the Quest inquiry that was handed to the Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, last Friday.
After 15 months' investigations Stevens has refused to sign off as satisfactory a number of the 17 transfers that were still under scrutiny after his interim report in December last year. Sources close to the inquiry confirmed that some of the report's findings have already been forwarded to the City of London's economic crime department, with other investigative agencies also looking into its results. Scudamore, already under pressure from the Premiership clubs over the Carlos Tevez affair, now faces a tricky decision as to whether he should make Stevens's report public and risk further revolt.
It is understood he intends to delay any comment on the report until after the arbitration proceedings demanded by Wigan Athletic and Fulham - the two Premiership survivors from the so-called "gang of four" who are objecting to the failure to dock West Ham United points for the illegal registration of Tevez - which are due to take place on June 18 and 19.
With the league's AGM having taken place last week, there will not now be any meetings for shareholder clubs until the new Premiership season commences in August. Any updates from Scudamore will have to be through memos or telephone conversations. These are bound to be uncomfortable, since several clubs are unhappy that the inquiry was ever instigated. They are concerned that until the final details are made public suspicion hangs over the entire Premiership.
After initially investigating 362 transfers over a 25-month period, Stevens's team whittled that number down first to 39 deals involving eight unnamed clubs, then to 17 transfers in December. At that stage Stevens refused to indicate how many clubs were still implicated.
It is not known whether any of the club officials whose conduct remains under investigation are managers or chairmen. But Scudamore is likely to face pressure to name the clubs under suspicion.
If and when the findings are made public, the inquiry process will continue; it emerged yesterday that Football Association investigators are considering retaining Stevens to probe deeper into suspected transfer-market irregularities than the Premier League's inquiry demanded.
It is understood that there are wider issues arising from the Stevens report than the initial terms of reference set out by the Premier League, which related only to the "bungs" issue. Quest's findings have aroused suspicions that some agents may be breaching transfer-market rules.
"It could be that there is a transaction that has been looked at and Quest have been satisfied from interviews that it has involved no bungs," an FA source said. "But they might have thought there were some strong issues - the way an agent behaved, for example - that means they might fall foul of the regulations. This will require more investigation. Even if there are no bungs uncovered, it would be for the FA to look into that kind of activity."
The FA has not yet received the report in full but over the past six months it has received regular progress updates from Quest and the Premier League. The FA has been handed complete dossiers of evidence on certain transfers, allowing its compliance department to conduct its own inquiries. On others it has received only partial evidence and had delayed its inquiries until the Premier League and Quest have satisfied their investigations and passed on the full report.
(Source: Guardian.co.uk)
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