Always Managing: My Autobiography (39 page)

Again, I got dragged in because I was trying to do somebody a favour. Kevin called me and said that Peter Harrison, a football agent he knew, wanted to come down to meet me. He had a guy who was buying his business for millions and he wanted to show him that he had contacts in football. I didn’t know Peter all that well, but Kevin spoke for him, so I didn’t see the problem. Kevin said Peter and his investor had arranged a meeting with Mark Hughes, the Blackburn Rovers manager, because we were playing on the Saturday, and wanted to set up one with me for the same Friday, 7 April 2006. I said Friday was out of the question. We had training, then the usual press conferences, and I had to plan for the match. It was my busiest day of the week. Kevin came back on and said the guy sounded really desperate. He only wanted five minutes of my time. We arranged that Kevin would take the meeting and I would just pop by. How much harm could that do? Plenty, as it turned out. Harrison came in and Kevin had a meeting with him, and his business partner Knut auf dem Berge, who we now know was an undercover reporter working for
Panorama
, and the architect of the whole thing. They sat in the canteen in full view of where the players go after training – so that’s how underhand and furtive it was. I came over and Peter started talking to me about going to watch some of the matches at the 2006 World Cup. They were going to fly some managers over, and would I be interested? I was nodding along, yeah, sure, not even listening, really. And then
he asked me what I thought of Andy Todd. I said he wasn’t bad. If he was a free transfer he could be worth pursuing. And that was it. I had no more to do with Harrison or Auf dem Berge. He wasn’t asking for payment, there was no suggestion I wanted anything out of the deal. I got up and left and went on with my business, never giving it a second thought. And then, some weeks later, I got a letter saying that I was on
Panorama
, that I was being filmed and that what I said about Todd constituted an illegal approach. What, telling an agent that I thought his player was OK? If that’s illegal, half of football should be banned. Conversations like that happen all the time.

It was Kevin who ended up the real loser. After I left they started talking to him about doing all our business through them. Kevin said they could come to some arrangement, but if you listen it is the people from
Panorama
making all the running.

Kevin had left Portsmouth and was a coach at Newcastle United at the time the programme aired, and it ended up costing him his job. Yet if I thought for one second that he was taking bungs, he wouldn’t have worked with me again. What I saw on that programme was Harrison and Auf dem Berge making proposals, and Kevin being too nice to tell them where to go. Not because he’s a crook, but because Peter Harrison had kidded him that this guy was going to buy his business for millions, and Kevin did not want to spoil that by making a scene. Kevin said he knew there was something fishy but didn’t want to be confrontational. He said it was like when you meet someone on holiday and say you’re happy to stay in touch but have no intention of seeing them again. I have known Kevin since he was a schoolboy. He’s the sort of guy that doesn’t want to offend, doesn’t want to rock the boat and is happy
with a quiet life. He’ll say his piece in staff meetings, and he’s a damn good coach, but he’s not the sort for confrontation. He’s just a lovely, family man – and as straight as they come.

I used to argue with people about Bobby Moore and the alleged stolen bracelet in 1970, because I knew the real man. Steal a bracelet from a jeweller’s in Colombia? Bobby? Our World Cup-winning captain? Are you sure? If someone put a £1000 watch in front of him and said he could have it for £1, he wouldn’t take it if he thought it was crooked. People were always coming around the training ground at West Ham with hooky gear. One week it would be Slazenger jumpers, the next Italian shoes, and all the lads would buy them – but not Bobby. Kevin’s the same. He was too naïve to see the set-up, and too polite to tell this stranger where to go. As he said, it was like one of those occasions when you meet people on holiday and they want to stay in touch. Maybe they’re not your cup of tea. But you don’t say that: you exchange phone numbers and smile and are very polite, and then forget it. Why cause offence? Yes, Kevin could just have told the pair of them to get stuffed – but he thought that might have ruined Peter’s business and they would only have tried to convince him otherwise. He wanted them gone. So he played along, waved them goodbye and did not follow it up. That is the key for me. If Kevin had really been after a bung, he would have made contact again, tried to pursue the relationship. Yet his contact with Harrison and Auf dem Berge ends that day. He actually wasn’t interested at all.

I felt terrible for Kevin that he had to leave Newcastle. He was assistant manager to Glenn Roeder, and the club simply did not stand by him. I was luckier with the backing I received at Portsmouth. The people at the club knew the reality, and I think
most people in football did, too. I have never had a problem employing Kevin since, and he went with me to Tottenham and Queens Park Rangers.

As for bungs, generally, I have heard a lot of chatter in my career but very little evidence. I do not believe the practice has ever been widespread in football. Not now, not at any time. Put it like this: I’m married, I’ve got a lovely wife, a lovely family, a lovely house; I’ve got seven grandchildren, one son has been a professional footballer, the other is also very successful, so why would I risk all of that, even for £200,000? If I was caught, if the news leaked out, I would be finished – my professional life would be finished, my family life would be finished – I could go to prison. Why would I risk that when I don’t need the money anyway? I’ve had good jobs, I’ve been well rewarded, I’m not greedy. If I was motivated solely by money, I would have taken some of the bigger jobs that I have been offered – I would be the manager of Ukraine now.

How could I take a bung knowing that, in one phone call, a person could ruin me and put every aspect of my life at risk? I would have to be mad. I don’t understand what my motivation would be. I think rumours get put around by jealous people, or agents who have got the hump that you aren’t doing business with them, and then others, who haven’t a clue how football works, pick up the gossip and spread it. The amount of people I’ve had poring through my financial records, if I had anything to hide it would have come out by now. Yet still the rumours persist. I’ve heard it said that there was a sinister reason I left West Ham, implying that I was taking a sneaky cut from transfers – but Lord Stevens looked at Rio Ferdinand’s move to Leeds United, and every other transfer from that time, and there was never a case to answer.

My son Mark wanted to be a football agent and early on he had a couple of very high-profile young players – Steven Gerrard and Rio Ferdinand. Gerrard didn’t concern me, but the first thing I said to him when I heard about Rio is that I wasn’t doing any business with him at West Ham. ‘I told you I didn’t want you to do this,’ I lectured, ‘and there is no way I am sitting across from my own son discussing one of my players, or having you go into a meeting with the chairman at my club. It leaves me open to all kinds of accusations. It’s not happening.’ Mark ended up losing Rio, partly because I was adamant that I wouldn’t enter any negotiations over the player while my son was his representative. Then Gérard Houllier recommended Steven Gerrard to another agent and, suddenly, Mark was out of business. I can’t say I was unhappy; I couldn’t leave myself vulnerable to criticism like that.

That’s how I feel about bungs. How could I live, waking up each morning wondering whether this was the day my secret was going to come out? How could I walk into the dressing room and try to command the respect of the players, if I knew an agent could tell his client that I siphoned money from a deal? No manager could cope with that. He would be at risk of blackmail. Do it once and where would it end? You wouldn’t be able to select the best team because your whole life would be spent trying to avoid getting found out. ‘Pick my player or I’ll go to the papers about what we paid you.’ How could you live like that? How could you carry on knowing that if an agent was skint, or down on his luck, he could make a fortune by selling a story about you?

Do I speak to agents? Of course I speak to agents. Do I use agents? All the time. But not just one. I’m not loyal. I’ll use anybody that can bring me a player, set up a deal and help me improve my
team. I find some agents just take; others are grafters. They come up with a name you might not have thought possible, or show you talent you didn’t know existed. I watch football whenever I can, but I can’t be across every match in every league. So if an agent has a player who is worth a look, I don’t care who he is, I’ll listen to him. Yet, once I’ve had that conversation, I pass the deal on to the executives at the club. As I mentioned earlier, anyone who thinks the manager has control of the money these days is mistaken. If an agent did want to do a deal on the sly, he would be more likely to go to the chairman or the chief executive – they do the business now, not us.

I remember signing Patrik Berger for Portsmouth in 2003 after we had been promoted to the Premier League. Milan and Peter Storrie went off with his agent, Patrik and I went to have pizza – for four hours. We got into the restaurant at 1 p.m. and it was 5 p.m. when Peter came through the door and announced the deal was done. That is the way with modern transfers. He could just as easily have arrived and told us it was all off – it is out of the manager’s hands these days. I can’t remember the last time I told a player we had signed him – he gets the news from his agent, and I get mine from the chief executive. The only time I was ever involved in transfer negotiations was when I was first at Bournemouth. I did the deals with our secretary – I was earning £80 per week and I would argue over whether a player was worth £70. I remember those early contracts: big money was a £1,000 signing-on fee, spread over instalments of £250 over four years. But even then, once Brian Tiler came in as chief executive, the procedure changed. From Brian to Peter Storrie, to Daniel Levy and now Phil Beard at QPR, it is the club that controls the purse strings these days.

That is not to say I never get involved – more that, in my experience, if I’m needed it usually means something has gone very wrong. Take Amdy Faye. He was a Willie McKay player that I bought during my first spell at Portsmouth in 2003. He was with Auxerre in France when I saw them against Arsenal the season before. I made Faye their best player by a long way, so was delighted when Willie called and said he was available. He had a year on his contract but had fallen out hugely with the manager, Guy Roux. They were arguing all the time, but the club were still reluctant to get rid of him because it was very close to the start of the season. I said I would need to see him in training first. ‘You’re mad, he’s in dispute with the club, he’s not a free agent,’ said Willie. ‘He belongs to Auxerre, he’s still under contract – he can’t just go training with Portsmouth.’ ‘I’m not interested then,’ I told him. He got the message and said he would see what he could do.

Willie is one of those grafting agents, so he came up with a plan. Faye was suspended for the first game of the new season, so he informed Auxerre he was ill and brought him over to us. We were pre-season training in Scotland when Faye arrived. After one session Teddy Sheringham came over to me. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked. ‘He’s different class.’ And he was. An imposing, tall midfield player; aggressive, a good passer, never gave the ball away. Everyone could see in an instant that he was a talent. He did two sessions and then we had a friendly with Kilmarnock. I decided to play him. Some of the staff were worried in case he was spotted, but by then I knew he was for us, and wanted to see how he fitted in with the rest of the team. Willie being Willie he immediately phoned up just about every club in the country to get them along to watch him, just in case there was a better deal going. I had Amdy down on the
team-sheet as ‘Andy Henri’, but it made no difference. The world and his wife were there. By half-time we were leading 5–0 and Amdy was our Rolls-Royce. All my instincts confirmed, I took him off, but it was too late. Now the word was out. The following day at the hotel we were knee deep in faxes from other clubs – Middlesbrough were particularly persistent. I read one, sent directly to Amdy. It promised to top whatever Portsmouth were offering. Meanwhile, our negotiations were dragging on because Auxerre were asking for £3 million. I got hold of the girl at the hotel reception, I spoke to the manager: ‘No more faxes for Mr Faye. He needs his rest and is not to be disturbed with any more messages.’

We had another friendly on the Saturday, but I was not going to chance him again in that. I flew back to Bournemouth and left Jim Smith and Andy Awford, our chief scout, in charge of Amdy. By now, we had moved him to a hotel on the south coast. ‘Just watch him,’ I said. ‘Go and see him lunchtime, spend the day with him, make sure he’s OK. We just need to keep him under wraps for two more days.’ That Sunday I went to Tottenham to watch Jamie play a friendly. Sandra came, too. We were all going back to Jamie and Louise’s house for a barbecue. It was a lovely warm summer day, absolutely perfect. About ten minutes before the end of the match, Andy Awford called: ‘Harry, he’s disappeared. I’ve just been round the hotel and he’s not there. They think he’s gone to Heathrow to get a plane back to France.’

‘He’s not going to France,’ I said. ‘He’s going to fucking Middlesbrough!’ I told Sandra the barbecue was off. We were leaving.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘Heathrow Airport,’ I told her. It was like a scene from a film – and a pretty far-fetched film at that.

We arrived at the airport, dumped the car on a double yellow line outside, and ran into terminal number one. I was frantic. I wasn’t even convinced Amdy had got the right airport and, even if he had, finding him was a million-to-one shot. ‘What does he look like?’ asked Sandra. ‘He’s a very tall black boy,’ I said. ‘Is that him?’ she asked, pointing to a middle-aged Rastafarian with a woolly hat on his head. I told you she doesn’t know much about football. After five minutes of searching, I turned a corner – and there was Amdy Faye. His English wasn’t the best.