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Redknapp arrest just the begining
30 November 2007
by Jerrad Peters

EVEN before his arrest on Wednesday, Harry Redknapp’s name dominated headlines and conversations throughout English football. The prominence in which the 60-year-old Portsmouth manager had found himself was justified, well-earned, and for all of the right reasons. With his hand-picked squad playing masterful football and challenging for a Champions’ League spot, Redknapp was being widely touted as the next head coach of England. How quickly a reputation can crumble.

That he was detained, briefly, by police should come as little surprise. Ever since the Football Association charged Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington with a mandate to probe into allegations of scandal and corruption within the professional game, Redknapp’s name has never been far from the mud. The Stevens Inquiry, however, never seemed to resonate with the general public. The media paid it very little attention. And most observers, quite mistakenly, clung to the belief that the cloud would pass before too long.

Indeed, the whole of the English football establishment approached the matter with more than an air of self-righteousness. They had dealt with the issues of violence and hooliganism decades ago – instituting a custom of civility which became the standard by which every other domestic league was judged. The modern matters of racism and corruption were viewed as cultural concerns unique to places like Eastern Europe and Italy. It may sound fickle; but until Wednesday evening, it was very much the reality.

The scales only came off the eyes when an Englishman was hauled away by police. A high-profile Englishman; the well-regarded manager of an up-and-coming Premier League club. As he drove home from Germany, having watched Stuttgart defeat Rangers in the Champions’ League, Harry Redknapp received a series of upsetting telephone calls from his wife. At 6:00 that morning, six City of London police officers had raided his house, confiscating a laptop computer. When he arrived, he was detained for questioning. Portsmouth Chief Executive Peter Storrie was already being held in custody. The football club released a statement as soon as the news broke in the early evening.

“The club is fully supportive of Peter and Harry, who are cooperating fully with City of London Police in this ongoing inquiry.”

As it happened, more than 60-officers had been involved in a series of stings throughout the country. Leicester City owner Milan Mandaric was arrested, as was Rangers midfielder Amdy Faye and player agent Willie McKay. All were held, stated a police spokeswoman, "on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting." Most disturbing are the links to Fratton Park in each case. And those curious associations, as much as anything else, are what brought Redknapp to the fore of the police investigation, code-named Operation Association.

At the outset, it should be clarified that the Stevens Inquiry and Operation Association are separate, non-related explorations of alleged corruption within English football. While the Stevens Inquiry is an FA-directed examination, Operation Association is a criminal investigation. Both, however, are attempting to address the same concerns – namely, illegal pay-offs and kickbacks, known as bungs, to managers from player agents in order to secure transfers.

The Stevens Inquiry was struck after Luton Town manager Mike Newell and former Queens Park Rangers boss Ian Holloway alleged that the payment and acceptance of bungs were commonplace in English football. After the statements were made in January, the FA interrogated both before concluding that an internal investigation was in order. Lord Stevens, just retired from his post as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, was allocated the assignment along with his private intelligence and investigation company, Quest Ltd. He commenced the assignment on March 3, 2006.

Seven-and-a-half months later – another bombshell. The BBC, having secretly undergone their own inquisition, aired the now infamous Panorama program on September 19. Entitled Undercover: Football's Dirty Secrets, the public broadcaster accomplished what Lord Stevens had, to that point, been unable to achieve. By exposing controversial and seemingly implicating footage and conversations of the likes of Redknapp and Sam Allardyce, it attached faces and names to an issue which, until then, had been devoid of any sort of solid proof.

The program came down particularly hard on Allardyce. In a discussion with an undercover reporter, player agent Peter Harrison revealed that he and colleague Teni Yerima had secured transfers with Bolton Wanderers by paying bungs to the Trotters manager through his son Craig. The younger, Allardyce, 31-years-old at the time, had, himself, become an agent after retiring from a seven year playing career in the lower leagues. The news enraged his father, who had missed the initial airing while coaching his side in an early Carling Cup tie. The 52-year-old vehemently denied ever have being approached by either Harrison or Yerima and is now considering legal action against the BBC.

So too, is Kevin Bond. The former Newcastle and Portsmouth assistant manager was similarly caught with a foot in his mouth by an undercover journalist, admitting that he would consider accepting bungs from a new players' agency that Harrison was said to be starting. As a result of the evidence, Bond was fired from his position at St. James' Park a week after the Panorama broadcast. He had taken the job in June, 2006 after quitting as Redknapp's number-two at Fratton Park. As a matter of fact, the 49-year-old had followed his former boss from Portsmouth in 2004 to Southampton and back to Portsmouth in 2005.

Redknapp, for his part, played a starring role on the Panorama program as well. And once again, Peter Harrison was in the middle of it. Concealed BBC cameras showed the 59-year-old Pompey boss partaking in a discreet conversation with the agent. Harrison mentioned that Blackburn Rovers defender Andy Todd was unsettled at Ewood Park and would consider a move to the south coast. Redknapp's reply seemed to reveal interest in approaching the player illegally about a transfer – although his response has since been subject to various interpretations.

As it turns out, the Stevens Inquiry has been far more damaging to Redknapp than the Panorama broadcast. When its final report was published in June, 2007, the inquiry cited the transfers of Collins Mbesuma, Benjani Mwaruwari, and Aliou Cisse as suspicious transactions. Each arrived at Fratton Park over a two-year period from August, 2004 to August, 2006.

Enter Willie McKay. A Scottish player agent based in Monaco, McKay was among the five individuals arrested on Wednesday. HhHaving first come to notoriety when the Daily Express sounded alarm bells over the murky transfer of Jean-Alain Boumsong, a McKay client, from Rangers to Newcastle in January, 2005, he is also the acting representative for both Benjani and Cisse. Redknapp has dealt frequently with McKay over his two stints at Portsmouth and, curiously, accepted a race-horse named Double Fantasy as a gift from the Scot.

Three, high-profile Chelsea players were also listed among Lord Stevens' catalog of suspect transfers. Didier Drogba, Petr Cech, and Michael Essien each moved to Stamford Bridge from France between 2004 and 2005, largely through the influence of Frank Arnesen, the Blues' sporting director. Arnesen was also implicated in Lord Stevens' final report.

Ironically, the 51-year-old arrived at Chelsea when club owner Roman Abramovich made an illegal approach to hire him from Tottenham Hotspur in 2005. And although Spurs initially fought to keep the former Denmark international at White Hart Lane, they sacked him when he was photographed on one of Abramovich's yachts in June of that year. Chelsea have since paid upwards of 8M-pounds in compensation to Spurs.

Since joining Chelsea, Arnesen has seemingly courted controversy at every turn. It was his influence which convinced the club to illegally pry Nigerian midfielder John Obi Mikel from Manchester United shortly after his hiring. As a result, the Blues were forced to compensate United to the tune of 10M-pounds. And, as Panorama revealed, he offered 15-year-old Middlesbrough youngster Nathan Porritt 150,000-pounds over three years to make the move to London.

Arnesen flexed his influential muscle again in September, 2007 when he came out on top in a long-running power struggle with manager Jose Mourinho. Having opposed the Dane's hiring from the outset, Mourinho was sacked and replaced by Avram Grant. Hand-picked by Arnesen, Grant arrived at Stamford Bridge via Portsmouth, for what it's worth, on the recommendation of Harry Redknapp.

Nevertheless, nothing in this story, this yarn of tangled anecdotes and shadowy suppositions, can be said to have come full-circle. Not yet. There are too many loose ends which need tying – to many questions which need answering.

That said, there is an underworld in the realm of football which requires further exploration. Wednesday's incidents are case in point. And for the first time, the general public is waking to the reality that not all to do with English football is correct and gentlemanly. Their resolve, their ultimate judgment, will direct future investigations more than anything else. Things are made right when there is a will to make them right. Unfortunately, making right will surely entail the hauling-away of more familiar faces before all is said and done.