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Lord Stevens has criticised the way that the FA has handled transfer deals, but has been unable to find evidence of wrongdoing that would stand up in a court of law, allowing Premiership chief executive Richard Scudamore to claim that clubs and managers are in the clear. However, a group of agents refused to cooperate with his inquiry and he will continue to investigate 17 transfer deals involving international transfers or cross-border money trials. Lord Stevens said that his gut reaction was that people were making money crookedly out of Premier League football.
The FA came in for sharp criticism for failing to monitor clubs' transfer arrangements 'in any detailed or systematic way.' The supervision of transfers was a 'mess'. Lord Stevens commented on what amounts to contempt shown by the clubs for the FA: 'the clubs neither anticipate, or are they concerned about, the strictures that might be imposed by the FA. Such scant regard for the rules of the game is quite frankly unacceptable.' Football authorities should consider banning people from the game for financial irregularities.
In 15 transfers players received fees that far outstripped the player's annual salary. In fact, players were found to be largely unaware of the fees paid to agents apparently acting on their behalf. Many examples of conflicts of interest could be found including undisclosed payments by an agent to a company owned or managed by a relative of a club official. Agents were forced to act on two, or even three, sides of the same deal. Lord Stevens was surprised to find that three clubs were not even familiar with the transfer rules while no less than 16 of the 20 Premiership clubs had failed to document financial arrangements properly. In three cases payments were made to agents with no supporting invoices supplied.
Writing in the Evening Standard, David Mellor provided a typically trenchant comment that knocked the nail on the head as far as the incompetence of the FA was concerned. He called for the FA 'to be removed from a regulatory responsibility that is far too big for the doddery old fools that dominate the FA Council.' However, is his call for a 'professionally conducted regulatory regime' the answer? It's what his Football Task Force recommended, but some might see it as an unwelcome extension of the regulatory state into sport. Any external body would come up against the tight knit football community that likes to settle things 'within football' and does not welcome what it sees as outside interference.
It may well be that effective intervention, at least as far as international transfers are concerned, will come from the EU. The Commission has invited responses to its independent review of football before it drafts a white paper on sport. However, where demand chases tight supply, as in football, the stakes are high and big money is available, effective regulation is not easy whoever is the regulator.
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