Sir Alex Ferguson accused of fixing Man U match for a Rolex
Former Man U manager Alex Ferguson fixed a football match with a corrupt agent who gave him a £30,000 gold Rolex, a court heard today.
Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Pagliara, 64, made the claims to an undercover reporter posing as a businesswoman looking to invest in football players, jurors were told.
He said the legendary manager fixed a champions league game against Italian giants Juventus and alleged Ferguson pocketed money from transfer deals.
Pagliara is on trial for bribery at Southwark Crown Court alongside assistant head coach of Barnsley Football Club Tommy Wright and fellow football agent Dax Price. All three deny the charges.
The trio were charged following allegations of corruption published by the Daily Telegraph in 2016, one of which led to Sam Allardyce resigning as England manager.
As part of the prosecution case outlined today, the court was told of unsubstantiated claims Pagliara made about former Premier League managers during a secretly recorded meeting with undercover journalist Claire Newell.
She posed as a representative of a fake sports management company called Meiran to investigate corruption.
The court was told that from their first meeting with Newall, Price and Pagliara ‘revealed their awareness of corrupt practices in the football transfer market and discussed their willingness to be involved in such activities’.
Price and Pagliara boasted about their links in Belgium, Italy and England and made allegations about the behaviour of other prominent footballing figures such as Steve McLaren, Harry Redknapp and manager Neil Warnock.
Pagliara claimed that ’99 per cent of the people in football if they weren’t in football would be selling second-hand cars’.
He also claimed he had ‘opened so many Swiss bank accounts for managers that you would not believe’.
Price also told the journalist that investing in football was ‘not for the morally correct.’
Prosecutor Brian O’Neill QC said it was not part of his case to ‘malign those individuals’ about whom the defendants spoke.
However, he said their accusations amounted to ‘significant evidence’ because it showed their ‘knowledge or belief of corruption within football’ and their ‘willingness to condone such practices.
Earlier in the trial, the court also heard that former Barnsley head coach Tommy Wright, 53, accepted a cash bribe to get players to sign up with the agents.
The trial continues.