BBC Panorama remains firm against veiled legal threats

Before it has even aired the controversial show on football bungs payments, the BBC programme Panorama said it will hold firm against any legal action.

One interviewee threatened to sue if, as Panorama intends, it uses his interview in Football's Dirty Secrets, which is to be screened on Tuesday. The interviewee has claimed Panorama used 'undercover' tactics to infiltrate the hidden world of football transfers.

The programme has stirred interest within the football world, which has long been hit by allegations of a 'bung culture.'

The corporation has written to a number of high-profile individuals asking them to respond to the allegations, which include corruption and dishonesty.

The programme's airing is crucial in that it will be broadcast shortly before the findings of Lord Stevens' official inquiry into transfer dealings on behalf of the Premier League.

Graham Bean, former head of the Football Association's compliance operation, was interviewed for the programme, but claimed he believed Panorama was making a documentary about the Stevens inquiry.

His lawyers requested that any footage featuring him is edited out of the final programme.

"I'm upset they conducted an undercover sting operation," Bean said. "I wasn't aware that this was going to be in the programme and, if they had told me about it, I would have probably changed my mind. I don't agree with that type of journalism."

Bean, who acts as an adviser to a number of top clubs, including Manchester United, said there was nothing controversial in what he had said in the interview. He said, however, that he was angry at the methods employed by the producers and wanted nothing more to do with them.

"The bottom line is, if they decide to include me, they will have to take the risk of what happens next," he said.

A BBC spokesman declined to comment on Bean's allegations but said the programme's makers intended it would go out in its original form.

"'I can confirm we have received correspondence," the spokesman said. "The programme will be going out on Tuesday as planned."

Kevin Bond, the assistant manager at Newcastle United, received a letter from Panorama. He spent last week consulting his lawyers, and did not travel to the club's UEFA Cup tie in Estonia Thursday.

Others include Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp and Peter Harrison, a football agent who was allegedly promised GBP 1.8 million for his help in launching a fake agency the programme had set up. All strongly deny any wrongdoing.

Redknapp said he hoped Portsmouth supporters watched the programme, insisting: that "I am one million percent innocent. It will be a very interesting programme, I'm looking forward to it very much, but I won't see it. I will be up in Mansfield with the team for a Cup tie."

At the same time, though, Redknapp described the Panorama undercover investigation as "laughable", and claimed he had never taken a bung.

Redknapp said Panorama used an undercover sting to try to catch him 'tapping up' Blackburn defender Andy Todd, a claim he strongly denies. He goes on to dismiss the belief that football is awash with illicit payments and backhanders.

"I was a complete innocent party," he said. "The guy rings up, who I haven't seen for seven years. He's setting up a new company for GBP 2 million for some guy and, 'Could he have five minutes with you, Harry?'

"So the guy I haven't spoken to for six or seven years comes down, sits opposite me and starts filming me but I don't say nothing, not a word to him. I know what I've done and I've done nothing wrong. I sat down with this guy and he wasted his time with me really.

"All this talk and all these idiots who keep on about bungs in football. Mike Newell has said something, but name [the person] who offered the bung. Who's done it to him? It doesn't happen, it isn't happening, it can't happen.

"You tell me that you're going to be a manager and earning plenty of money, and you have to go to sleep at night knowing any idiot can pick up a phone and ring a newspaper and finish your career.

"You walk into a dressing room, every player, they've got agents who might say to them, 'I've given your manager a few quid'. You're going to get respect from those players? They can stand up and say: 'I know all about you'. It's ( b.s.)."

The programme's producers hired former German footballer Knut Aufdemberge, who works as a scout for British Premier League clubs, to pose as a middleman for a purportedly wealthy United States investor wanting to set up Dynamic Soccer, a 'super agency' representing the biggest names in the game.

Over six months, Aufdemberge was introduced to agents and managers on the recommendation of Harrison. But the businessman was actually an undercover BBC reporter.

Coincidentally, one of those introduced to the bogus businessman was Athole Still, Sven Goran Eriksson's adviser. Still and Eriksson were duped by an undercover News of the World piece that embarrassed the former England manager when he was recorded speaking to the paper's 'fake sheik' in disparaging terms about England players.

Newell, the manager of Luton Town, who has made a series of damning allegations about agents offering 'bungs', has been interviewed for the programme. He believes corruption within the game will be exposed by the Stevens inquiry.

"If there was nothing to be found, Lord Stevens would have said so by now and called it to a halt," he said in an interview last week. "I would be amazed if they don't find anything."

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.