‘Big Sam’ fighting to save job
LONDON: Sam Allardyce is set for crisis talks with his Football Association employers on Tuesday as the England manager fights to save his job after being caught in a newspaper sting.
Allardyce gave advice on how to circumnavigate transfer rules, criticised the FA’s decision to rebuild Wembley and mocked his England predecessor Roy Hodgson while being secretly filmed by Daily Telegraph reporters posing as Far East businessmen.
Allardyce, 61, appointed England manager in July on a £3 million (Rs25.9cr)-a-year contract, also agreed to travel to Singapore and Hong Kong as an ambassador for their fictitious firm for a fee of £400,000 (Rs3.4cr).
Senior FA figures were said to be stunned by the revelations and the former Sunderland and West Ham manager was seen driving away from his home in Bolton, northwest England, early on Tuesday morning amid reports he had been summoned to the governing body’s Wembley headquarters to defend himself.
The FA probe leaves Allardyce in danger of being sacked just one game into his reign — a 1-0 win in Slovakia — just 67 days after he was hired. ‘BIG MONEY’ Allardyce’s problems began when he agreed to meet the undercover Telegraph reporters, who asked if it would be a problem for their fictitious agency to get involved in third-party ownership through funding football transfers, which is banned under Fifa rules.
“It’s not a problem. We got (Enner) Valencia in (at West Ham). He was third-party owned when we bought him from Mexico,” Allardyce replied.
The Telegraph reported Allardyce said he knew of certain agents who were “doing it all the time” and added: “You can still get around it. I mean obviously the big money’s here.
“You get a percentage of the player’s agent’s fee that the agent pays to you, the company, because he’s done that new deal at the club again...It’s massive for doing about two hours’ work.”
It is not the first time Allardyce, nicknamed “Big Sam”, has been linked with off-field scandals during his long managerial career.
In 2006 he was named in a BBC Panorama programme which alleged that he had taken illegal payments, or “bungs”, as part of transfer deals.
Allardyce denied the claims and an independent investigation by a former top policeman found no evidence of irregular payments.