Big Sam fingered in Panorama program - by whom ?

On the 28th May BBC Online Sport had a fascinating piece on Sam Allardyce, Bolton Wanderers, no nonsense, up front, bluff, northern manager.

Basically Sam was having a dig at David Dein ...Dein was part of the six-man panel who interviewed Bolton boss Allardyce for the England coaching job.

"I don't know how much power David Dein has but he obviously has a great influence at the FA," said Big Sam.

"One minute he had nothing to do with it the next he was on the top table interviewing candidates. You'd have to ask them how that came about."

Later explaining In an interview with the News of the World, Big Sam commented: "We do know one thing, he wouldn't want the rest of the committee to go for Arsene Wenger.

"I am sure he would have batted that back with as much vigour as possible."

Meaning of course that Dein wouldn't want to lose the services of Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, nor his contacts, and closeness to Jerome Anderson of SEM who acted for Charlie Nicholas, David Seaman and Ian Wright joining the club and more recently he brought in Thierry Henry and Frannie Jeffers (reputedly for an SEM cut of £650,000).

So no big surprise when someone (?) fingered Big Sam's son in the Panorama program tonight. Craig Allardyce, who has his own agency Prolific Management Limited now, but who worked for agent Mark Curtis. It was Mark who got into hot water with Arsenal when he acted as intermediary for Arsenal in the transfer of Jermaine Pennant, 15, from Notts County and was said to have paid Pennant's dad £700 to complete the £10,000 deal.

Arsenal denied they acted wrongly and distanced themselves from Curtis.

A club statement at the time said : "Arsenal Football Club has acted responsibly throughout these negotiations. Mark Curtis, who is an authorised agent, acted on behalf of Arsenal in setting up an agreement between the club and Notts County.

"Any financial transaction between Mark Curtis and Garry Pennant was totally without the knowledge and authorisation of Arsenal Football Club. Mark Curtis signed a standard agreement with Arsenal Football Club - an agreement that the club would use with any authorised agent.

Craig Allardyce acts as the official agent to Israeli national team player 24 year old Tal Ben Haim who currently plays for Bolton and was bought for an undisclosed sum from Maccabi Tel Aviv. There was great excitement in August when Ben Haim refused to train for the Israeli national team and was suspended but reinstated 2 weeks later after Big Sam's insistence.

PANORAMA CLAIMS

"In undercover filming three different agents name Sam Allardyce, a recent candidate for the England manager's job, as a corrupt manager. Two of them say that they have made illegal payments to Sam Allardyce personally," a BBC Panorama press release says.

"Peter Harrison, an agent known to be close to Allardyce, is secretly filmed saying that he bribes Sam by offering to pay his son Craig: He says: "If I say 'Listen Sam, I'll give Craig some money'... he'll say 'Yeah, okay, we'll do a deal.'"

"Panorama has also uncovered that three different Bolton transfer signings (of defender Tal Ben Haim, Japanese star Hidi Nakata, and goalkeeper Ali Al-Habsi - 23 yr old Omani who joined from SFK Lyn of Norway.) involved secret payments from agents to Craig Allardyce. The programme understands that Craig Allardyce received around £50,000 ($A130,000) for the deal involving Ben Haim. At the time Craig was contractually banned from doing any Bolton deals.

"In the case of two of these deals (Nakata and Ali Al-Habsi), the agent secretly paying Craig was Peter Harrison."

"Craig admitted to BBC reporter Alex Millar that his father Sam Allardyce did know about these payments, saying: 'Yeah course he knew course he knew... I've never hidden anything.'"