Football manager had no paperwork to explain £5,000 payment to agent, court hears

A football manager submitted no paperwork for the assessment of players for which he was paid a supposed consultancy fee of £5,000, a court heard.

Tommy Wright, assistant manager of Barnsley FC, did not sign any consultancy agreement nor did he submit any written reports on players, despite being paid the sum.

Instead the money was handed to him in cash at a Leeds hotel hidden in an envelope so as to remain of the books, the court heard.

Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Pagliara, a football agent accused of soliciting and arranging payment of a bribe to Mr Wright, insisted in court on Wednesday that the £5,000 was simply a consultancy payment for the assistant manager’s opinion of players.

Mr Pagliara is accused of arranging a bribe as an initial payment for Mr Wright to persuade Barnsley players to sign with his sports agency.

Asked during his trial at Southwark Crown Court whether Mr Price had ever come back with any written assessments of players for which he claimed he had been hired Mr Pagliara replied: “No.”

Asked if Mr Wright had signed a contract or put anything in writing for his alleged consultancy services, Mr Pagiara replied: “No, nothing in writing.”

The court heard that in undercover recordings made by the Telegraph as part of an undercover investigation into football corruption Mr Pagliara’s business partner and co-accused Dax Price told the paper’s reporter Claire Newell: “We've got the geezer we’re bunging money to get players in. We’ve got to give him some readies to get him started.”

Mr Pagliara admitted this was a reference to Mr Wright.

But he went on to state that he arranged for Mr Wright to be paid in cash at the Queen’s Hotel, in Leeds, on August 11, 2016, simply because he did not want to embarrass him in front of his bosses at Barnsley, who he claimed might discover he had been paid by another company if it went through his personal bank account.

In a tape recording heard by the jury Mr Pagliara told Mr Price he was being “silly” for suggesting Mr Wright be paid by bank transfer.

Asked by prosecuting barrister Brian O’Neill QC whether paying £5,000 in cash in an envelope was a “perfectly above board transaction” Mr Pagliara replied: “Yes.”

He said: “I didn’t want to put Tommy Wright in an embarrassing situation [with Barnsley FC].”

Under cross-examination Mr Pagliara also admitted he never discussed the arrangement with Mr Wright with his long-standing lawyer, Simon Ledbrooke, which the prosecution suggested was evidence that he knew what he was doing was illegal.

Mr O’Neill suggested to him: “You couldn’t talk about Tommy Wright’s consultancy arrangement in front of Simon Ledbrooke because he’d understand this was a bribe and to discuss paying a bribe in front of a solicitor would have been suidice.”

Mr Wright, 52, denies two counts of accepting a bribe. Mr Price, 47, from Barnsley, South Yorks, denies two counts of paying and facilitating a bribe.

Mr Pagliara, who also denies two counts of paying and facilitating a bribe, earlier admitted he has failed to apologise to a string of high profile managers he accused of taking illicit payments.

He had falsely claimed to The Telegraph’s undercover reporters that figures such as the former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, Chelsea’s former boss Antonio Conte and former Tottenham manager Harry Redknap were willing to take bribes or gifts in return for favours.

Others he named during conversations with Ms Newell as taking ‘bungs’ included Tony Pulis, the Middlesbrough, Stoke and Crystal Palace manager, and Steve Bruce, the current Newcastle United manager.

Mr Pagliara claims he named the managers as people who accepted corrupt payments as part of an act to persuade Ms Newell’s Far East consortium to hire him.

He now accepts he was lying about their willingness to engage in corrupt practices.

But Mr Pagliara admitted in court that he has yet to apologise to any of them for defaming their reputation and character.

Admitting he had not apologise to Conte despite it being three years since he lied about him he told the court: “I slandered Antonio Conte. I’m so sorry because I don’t know him. I can only apologise to him, which I will do one day.”

The Italian said the only person to which he had apologised for dragging into his false claims was Steve McLaren, the former England manager.

The 64-year-old claims he was simply “grandstanding” and telling Ms Newell “what she wanted to hear” when he boasted to her that not only was he corrupt, but that so was much of English football.

Mr Pagliara told the court his claims were part of a ruse to persuade Meiran, the fictitious  consortium set up by The Telegraph as part of its investigation, to buy an English club and install him as its general manager.

He was approached by Telegraph journalists in 2016, after he returned to the game as an agent following a five-year ban over a match-fixing scam in Italy.

Another figure implicated by Mr Pagliara as corrupt was the former England manager Sam Allardyce, who he suggested to Ms Newell would take ‘bungs’ paid to secret accounts in return for favours.

He admitted he had not contacted Mr Allardyce to apologise.

Mr Allardyce left his job as England manager by mutual agreement in September 2016 after being filmed by The Telegraph offering advice to businessmen on how to “get around” FA rules on player transfers. There is no suggestion he broke the law.

Mr Pagliara said that had it not been for Mr Allardyce having to quit his job “England would have won the World Cup”.

The trial continues.