England manager Sam Allardyce has been filmed allegedly dispensing advice on how to bypass the Premier League’s rules on third-party player ownership.
An investigation from the Telegraph reportedly shows the former Sunderland boss speaking to undercover reporters who the paper claims were posing as representatives of a Far East investment company, telling them bypassing third-party ownership rules was ‘not a problem’.
Third-party ownership, while permitted in a number of leagues across the world, is not allowed in the Premier League.
The ban was officially written into the competition’s rules ahead of the 2008/09 season, following controversy regarding the contracts of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano at West Ham United two years prior.
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“You can still get around it,” Allardyce is quoted as saying in the subtitled video, naming two individuals who he claims have “been doing it for years”.
“What they would be better doing is making sure they’ve got the ownership and the agent. So they own the agent – the agent works for them as well.”
“You get a percentage of the player’s agent’s fee which the agent pays to you, the company, because he’s done that new deal at that club again. Or they sell him on, and you’re not getting a part of the transfer fee any more, cause you can’t do that.
“But…because of the size of the contracts now, the contract’ll be worth thirty, forty million, at ten per cent, and…you’ve done a deal with the agent where you’re getting five per cent of the agent’s fee, which is massive for doing about two hours’ work.”
As per the Football Association’s rules on third party ownership for the 2016/17 season, clubs are forbidden from ‘enter[ing] into an Agreement which enables any party, other than the Club itself, to influence materially the Club’s policies or the performance of its teams or Players in Matches and/or Competitions.’
At the time of writing, neither the Football Association nor Allardyce himself has commented on the Telegraph investigation.
