Redknapp probe deals with taxes, not bungs

's problems were not bungs, but taxes.

The London police were not investigating former English Portsmouth manager, Harry Redknapp, on bung charges, but taxes. Redknapp recently won a court victory against London police investigating suspected tax fraud.

Birmingham City joint-chairman David Sullivan said following his arrest last month that the issue was taxes and not bungs.

Redknapp won a claim in the high court that the warrant obtained by London police to search his home last November was unlawful. He complained that the raid on his house at 6 a.m. was down with malice after he had offered full cooperation to the police. Redknapp was also shocked that photographers were there, and pictures of the raid surfaced in the Sun the following morning.

Lord Justice Latham found that the search warrant was unlawful because the police had failed to specify to the magistrates issuing the warrant why they needed it.

The judgment said London police began an investigation into "suspected conspiracy to defraud, false accounting and money laundering offences" in 2006.

"It was suspected that (Redknapp) … together with the (Portsmouth) managing director Peter Storrie and the club's then owner and chairman Milan Mandaric, may have conspired together to make disguised payments to a player, Amdy Faye, using the agent William McKay to receive payments offshore," read the judgment. "These inquiries have been stimulated by information obtained from the French authorities."

Also swept up by the London police were Sullivan Tottenham fullback Pascal Chimbonda, Birmingham City managing director Karren Brady and an unnamed 61-year- old accountant. McKay declined to comment yesterday but has denied wrongdoing.

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