Nuclear time! I have just sent the following message to Lord Triesman, Brian Barwick and Adrin Cooper at the FA and copied in David Conn, Henry Winter, Martin Samuel, James Lawton, Paul Hayward and Steven Howard. I don't have e-mail addresses for Mick Dennis or Alan Nixon as these bounced so if anyone can help please let me know.
A COPY OF THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN SENT TO THE MEDIA OUTLETS SHOWN IN THE ‘CC’ COLUMN OF THIS E-MAIL
I understand the Premier League operates under the jurisdiction of the Football Association and like every other league in England must submit its rules to you for approval and sanction.
I am told that it is a general requirement for all leagues to have a rule in place to cover incidents that are known in common parlance as ‘tapping up’ The Premier League’s rule K3 is intended to cover this issue and is mentioned in the following terms:
‘Any club which by itself, by any of its Officials, by any of its Players, by its Agent, by any other Person on its behalf or by any other means whatsoever makes an approach directly or indirectly to a Contract Player except as permitted by Rule K1.1.2 or Rule K2 shall be in breach of these Rules and may be dealt with under the provisions of Section R’.
And rule R1 gives the Premier League the authority to inquire into any suspected or alleged breach as it sees fit:
‘The board shall have power to inquire into any suspected or alleged breach of these Rules and for that purpose may require any Manager, Match Official, official or Player to appear before it and to produce documents’.
It is a reasonable assumption that the two rules referred to above were amongst the rules submitted to you by the Premier League which you subsequently approved and sanctioned.
The regulatory framework is therefore in place to police any such allegations of ‘tapping up’. However I have been told by the Premier League that member clubs have indicated they do not wish rule K3 to be used until and unless a formal complaint is made by one of the member clubs of the organisation, or to quote them directly:
‘Premier League Rules are essentially an agreement between member Clubs that the Board applies, and in the absence of a complaint this is not a Rule that the collective body of Clubs wish to apply’.
This disclosure came as something of a revelation to ordinary supporters who had been asking the Premier League to investigate allegations of an illegal approach by Manchester United to Dimitar Berbatov on the last transfer deadline day, in accordance with its own published rules.
The initial response from the Premier League implied it was its own rules which prevented it from making enquiries when a complaint had not been received from a member club. However the Premier League later admitted this was not the case and only when questioned in more detail did they admit that a policy decision had been taken only to use rule K3 when a formal complaint had been made, and that as mentioned above this was at the behest of the member clubs. I can supply you with copies of e-mails I have received from the Premier League in relation to the points raised if you require.
The man on the Clapham Omnibus might be forgiven for thinking that the intervention of the clubs was designed to prevent the Premier League having much by way of effective power in being able to police the system in relation to allegations of illegal approaches. I was so concerned I asked the Premier League for confirmation they had asked you to approve what in any practical sense is an amendment to rule K3. A Premier League official has confirmed to me that they have not, and I must therefore presume that you are unaware that the Premier League has in place what many would describe as a secret agreement with its clubs which means in practice that rule K3 as intended and as approved by you has essentially been neutered by the very clubs the rule K3 was aimed at.
I would therefore ask you to make appropriate enquiries of the Premier League as by their own admission, they have entered into an agreement with the clubs which at the very least is intended to circumvent the spirit of rule K3 and at the more serious end of the scale allows, if unchecked, a culture of ‘anything goes’ to pervade through the game – and that by a body who is supposed to police the system, at least in relation to the Premier League.
I do not feel it an exaggeration to suggest the Premier League has a duty of care to all involved in its competition, to ensure that its rules are adhered to by all and that the rules are enforced without fear or favour. Many supporters I have spoken to recently feel the Premier League is not fit for purpose in this regard.
They say this because of the hitherto little publicised agreement with the member clubs mentioned above, which to the average fan seems to be little different than the same type of hidden side agreement characterised in the West Ham/Carlos Tevez affair. The average fan could perhaps be forgiven for thinking the Premier League has agreed, behind closed doors and completely off-record, only to uphold rule K3 in extreme circumstances and in the process given the more powerful clubs carte blanche to do pretty much what they want in relation to this rule.
On the face of it all an ‘offending’ club has to do, if ‘found out’, is to agree a level of consideration with the ‘victim’ club to avoid an investigation by the Premier League – it is only when the amount of consideration cannot be agreed upon that the rule can be activated. Only then could the Premier League in theory launch an investigation because no matter what, they cannot act unless they receive an official complaint from a member club.
This agreement with the clubs came to my attention in the aftermath of the transfer of Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United on the last transfer deadline day. Extensive coverage in all media outlets had suggested Manchester United made an approach for Dimitar Berbatov in direct contravention of rule K3 and subsequently reached an unspecified agreement with Tottenham Hotspur in return for Tottenham not making an official complaint to the Premier League in respect of their conduct.
Taking the agreement to circumvent rule K3 to its logical conclusion one can only conclude that if a manager or official of a member club came on Sky Sports News in person tonight and brazenly admitted to breaching rule K3, even perhaps going as far to boast his club had paid the other club not to report the incident, the manager would know there could be no prospect of an investigation in respect of the breach as he would be in full knowledge that the other club had received satisfactory consideration and would not therefore make a complaint to the Premier League.
I asked the Premier League to respond with their views about a scenario I presented of potential collusion between two clubs, where one club who had knowingly broken the rules by making an illegal approach paid the other club not to report the alleged breach to them. The Premier League failed to address this question which is somewhat disappointing given it would appear, prima facie, that this was precisely the allegation that had been made in the national media. Namely, following an apparent illegal approach to Dimitar Berbatov Manchester United ultimately reached agreement with Tottenham Hotspur whereby in return for an unspecified yet tangible consideration Tottenham Hotspur would drop its public threats to make a second official complaint to the Premier League about Manchester United’s alleged breach of rule K3, this time in relation to events of 1 September 2008.
This is perhaps the most high profile ‘tapping up’ case since the Ashley Cole affair. Every media outlet you care to mention suggested that despite Tottenham Hotspur receiving and accepting a bid from Manchester City for the player, the club at the time had not received an acceptable bid from Manchester United and had therefore only given Manchester City permission to speak to the player. Tottenham's chairman was widely reported as stating Manchester United did not have permission to speak to the player, but despite this, club officials of Manchester United, including the manager, met Mr Berbatov, discussed and agreed personal terms and conducted a medical. If press reports are to be believed, it is suggested that David Gill, who is the Premier League’s representative on the main board of the Football Association was present for at least some of these discussions, which would be a matter of some considerable concern if true.
It was furthermore suggested in the press after the event that Tottenham Hotspur withdrew their threat of a complaint as part of the 'deal' that eventually took the player to Manchester United.
It is scarcely conceivable that the Premier League as a body is in effect powerless to uphold its own rules, being prevented from even investigating many significant allegations of wrongdoing in the game that without question bring the game into disrepute.
That it is seemingly prevented from doing so by member clubs reportedly coming together to circumvent Premier League rule K3 and in the process disadvantaging a club who made a proper approach is somewhat galling for those who like the game to be played by the rules.
I have compiled a dossier which contains examples in the national media that suggests that Manchester United made an illegal approach to Dimitar Berbatov. I do not intend to send this to you within the body of this message as you will already be aware of the reports, but I can send details to you separately if you so wish. In view of the overwhelming and quite detailed coverage one could perhaps be forgiven for believing media reports in relation to the Berbatov transfer amount to rather more than mere press speculation.
The subliminal messages sent to the common man regarding apparent abuses of Premier League rule K3 seem loud and clear. The average fan may well feel the Premier League only act when they absolutely have to and not before with many supporters feeling the Premier League has no appetite for ensuring its more powerful members adhere to the rules. And that's a terrible thing to believe, because this goes right to the heart of the integrity of the game.
It's not as if fans don't know and even accept, albeit reluctantly, that tapping up doesn't go on. With the advent of agents I think we would all imagine it's often done via them so clubs are able to proclaim they have not spoken to the player, at least directly anyway.
But if what has been reported is true then Manchester United’s conduct has been breathtaking. An onlooker reviewing events unfolding on 1 September could have been forgiven for thinking it was as if Manchester United didn't care about the potential consequences of what they were doing, such was their desperation to make the deal go through.
But of course, and unknown at the time to the rest of us mere mortals, they would have known that as long as they ultimately paid the price demanded by Tottenham then nothing of consequence would be done by the Premier League, the very body entrusted with ensuring rule K3 was adhered to, because of the secret agreement that is in place with regard to rule K3.
There are a number of very clear messages the football authorities are giving the average fan by the Premier League’s refusal to uphold rule K3 in its literal and absolute sense. These are that the authorities are prepared to turn a blind eye to any tapping up unless and until one club makes a formal complaint to the Premier League. That the Premier League is not prepared to, nay, not able to uphold its own rules, due to an unpublished and off-record agreement between it and the clubs. And that as a consequence, the Premier League is not prepared to stand up for the rights of clubs and their supporters that play by the rules in relation to rule K3.
As the Premier League has already told me they are unable to investigate events surrounding the Berbatov transfer I call on you to investigate the Premier League’s secret agreement with its clubs in relation to rule K3 and secondly instruct the Premier League to carry out an enquiry as to whether Manchester United broke rule K3 on 1 September 2008 in relation to the transfer of Mr Berbatov. Given the Premier League have deliberately entered into a side agreement to negate the intent of their rule K3 then it falls to you to act as the overall policeman, since they self-evidently cannot be trusted to fulfil the role. In my humble opinion of course.
And finally, whilst I am more than happy to let The Football Association have my full contact details I would ask that you and all staff connected with your organisation respect my right to privacy in all matters and do not divulge my personal identity in relation to this letter to any third party outside your organisation. I will send details of my name, address and telephone number to you once you have let me know you are happy to comply with this request.
