This was like at the time the news broke as well.

All that pontificating to FIFA

People in glass houses and all that

Giggs a lowlife, no shock here

comment by ManUtdDaredevil (U9612)
posted 11 minutes ago
All that pontificating to FIFA

People in glass houses and all that
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Yay you get to have a go at the English mudd you must be happy.

Not really sure the fa could have known it's more about how they react now.

Surprised SAF is not there.

Lots of his ex players are.

The Bebe transfer needs to be looked at.

comment by LQ (U6305)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by ManUtdDaredevil (U9612)
posted 11 minutes ago
All that pontificating to FIFA

People in glass houses and all that
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Yay you get to have a go at the English mudd you must be happy.

Not really sure the fa could have known it's more about how they react now.
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I thought the FA was an organisation, not "the English."

I have little time for hypocrites so I found the FAs pontificating hilarious.

Almost as amusing as the City fans who have now embraced a philosophy they so derided for so long

Comment deleted by Site Moderator

Harry

I think he sold Kaboul 3-4 times and bought him back.

comment by I Will Not Change My Name (U8613)
posted 11 minutes ago
Surprised SAF is not there.
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Fergie was too clever for this. He would get his sons to do the talking.

What about the United fans who have turned into what they hated.

Obsessed with city moaning about our refereeing decisions.

I take it you hate that hypocrisy too.

So many empty seats last night, couldn't you get a ticket?

the fa got rid of allardice when the evidence was presented, to be fair they acted decisivly and quickly.

Not like Fifa or eufa.

All his ex players or people in his clique like Fat Sam

Now they need to do an investigation into fergie time and the PGMOL

Agreed FA acted swiftly.

Considering how diverse FIFA and Uefa are, it's not easy to get rid somebody off is not that easy as you think.

Looks like it was BS, nothing in the papers?

"Not really sure the fa could have known it's more about how they react now."

Accepting Sams resignation and paying him £1m is a good reaction imo.

Should have been sacked or backed. Think what that £1m could do for grass roots...

The FA claim that they are powerless, they have no authority to take action. They can investigate, but allegedly must move it on higher. That's was their claim following the Stevens enquiry. They passed it on to that bastion of rectitude, yes, you've guessed it, FIFA, who sat on it sufficiently long enough to declare that it was time-limited.

So, in the intervening period, since the Stevens report was effectively shelved, why didn't the FA go to government and seek the power to properly manage these people? To ask for the teeth to bite them. Hard.


JimmyTheRed

Blame the justice system. Fat Sam would have taken FA to the court and obviously courts don't accept that kind of evidence then it will cost FA more than that.

Giggs needs to have it done to him, the guys a god in the eyes of united fans and the media. It's like his shlt don't stink..

Shouldn't wish I'll on anyone but any of "the class of 92" being done is a good thing because they're worshipped in the eyes of the media and the fickle football fans have bought into that garbage.

Seriously though think back to that Bebe transfer.

No one else think that looked dodgy?

This is the FA getting their just deserts. Below is a summary into Lord Stevens report into the suggestion that managers were taking bungs. Both the FA and FIFA are clearly guilty of brushing it all under the carpet. Unbelievable when you look at 'reasoning' behind it not getting investigated further.
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The revelations of recent days have recalled memories of the Stevens Report and the 17 'suspicious' deals that, nine years on, still have outstanding questions against them
Ian Herbert

It has to be said that the second day of The Daily Telegraph's investigation into football corruption lacked some of the colourful idiosyncrasies of the first. There was no football manager bragging and mocking in a posh restaurant with what looked suspiciously like a pint of wine on the table in front of him and a napkin over his head.

But its findings were inestimably more serious because they contained something notably absent from Tuesday's Sam Allardyce scoop: allegations of corruption. The claim is that eight unnamed current or recent Premier League football managers are known for taking 'bungs', or 'coffee' as ex-agent Pino Pagliara puts. (Manager: "Is there a little coffee for me in that deal, Pino?" Pino: "Yes, course there is. I'll negotiate that coffee as well."

Hopefully Pagliara's evidence will be substantially more than anecdotal, because he is not the kind of witness you would mortgage the house on, even when boasting to undercover reporters whom he thinks are businessmen. Pagliara, who opened up over Dover sole at the San Carlo in Manchester, was banned from football for five years in 2005 for match fixing. He is not registered as an FA or Fifa agent and currently not permitted to conduct transfer business. His principal involvement in British football in the last few years has been time spent with his good friend Massimo Cellino, the controversial Leeds United owner.

Considering that the FA considered the Allardyce revelations serious enough to part company with him, the governing body is surely, in the name of even-handedness, ethically bound to investigate the revelations about these unnamed managers too. It was being suggested on Wednesday that no less than an inquiry on the same lines as the one conducted by the former Met Commissioner Lord John Stevens was required.

But hang on a minute… wasn't there some unfinished business where the Stevens Report was concerned? Some of those with longer memories for these matters may recall that Stevens was engaged by the Football Association to investigate corruption in football in 2006, after a BBC Panorama programme, 'Undercover: Football's Dirty Secrets', alleged that Allardyce and his son Craig, an agent, accepted 'bungs' from agents for signing players.


Sam Allardyce after resigning: 'Entrapment has won'
Stevens left no stone unturned. He engaged a team of forensic accountants to examine 362 transfers which took place between January 1, 2004 and January 31, 2006. His report, published in June 2007, ended with a conclusion that there were 17 'suspicious' transfers that he had been unable to sign off as legitimate in his final report, because there were outstanding questions against them.

The Stevens Report's 17 'suspicious' transfers

Ali Al-Habsi (Lyn Oslo to Bolton)

Tal Ben Haim (Maccabi Tel Aviv to Bolton)

Blessing Kaku (FC Ashdod to Bolton)

Julio Correa (Valladolid to Bolton)

Didier Drogba (Marseille to Chelsea)

Petr Cech (Rennes to Chelsea)

Michael Essien (Lyon to Chelsea)

Collins Mbesuma (Kaizer Chiefs to Portsmouth)

Benjani (Auxerre to Portsmouth)

Aliou Cisse (Birmingham City to Portsmouth)

Emre Belozoglu (Internazionale to Newcastle)

Jean-Alain Boumsong (Rangers to Newcastle)

Amdy Faye (Portsmouth to Newcastle)

Albert Luque (Deportivo La Coruna to Newcastle)

Aiyegbeni Yakubu (Portsmouth to Middlesbrough)

Fabio Rochemback (Barcelona to Middlesbrough)

Four of the 17 deals were Bolton signings at the time Allardyce managed the club: Ali Al-Habsi, Tal Ben Haim, Blessing Kaku and Julio Correa. Three were Chelsea buys (Didier Drogba's move from Marseille, Petr Cech's from Rennes and Michael Essien's move from Lyon the following year). A further three arrived at Harry Redknapp's Portsmouth (Collins Mbesuma, Benjani Mwaruwari and Aliou Cisse). Four were Newcastle signings (Emre Belozoglu, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Amdy Faye and Albert Luque), and two went to Middlesbrough (Aiyegbeni Yakubu and Fabio Rochemback) while one transfer has not been disclosed.

Stevens' thorough work was brave work. He was challenging the football establishment. One agent who was named in the report, Barry Silkman responded to say: "Whoever he is, Lord Stevens, he is a liar. They will rue the day they were ever born."

So what happened next? What did football's governing bodies do to make the work and the veiled threats Stevens was put through worthwhile?

Nothing. The sum total of nothing. The FA examined the Stevens report and decided that they did not have the investigative infrastructure to deal with it. So they asked Fifa to look more deeply, instead. But this took time. Much time. Fifa say that their "formal intervention" was not requested by the FA until November 2008 - a full 17 months after Stevens had published his work.

Fifa says that it then looked at the evidence, too. But this took time. Much time. Not until September 2009 – more than two years after Stevens reported and ten months after the FA had asked for help – did football's supreme authority reply to say that it could not investigate, because the FA had made its request too late.

Here, in black and white, is the response to an inquiry to Fifa about what became of the list of 17: "Fifa thoroughly examined each individual case, and informed The FA in September 2009 that the Players' Status Committee was not in a position to consider the complaints due to the time elapsed."

So there you have it. The FA and Fifa were given something vastly more valuable than the loose claims of an ex-football agent and convicted match fixer, talking over dinner in central Manchester. They were handed the fruits of a rigorous and forensic financial investigation, led by one of the most senior ex-police officers in the land, and yet lacked either the curiosity or the concern to look just a little deeper. So the cases went unsolved. Corruption in football might be a problem. But the indifference of those tasked to tackled it has been just as much a scandal. We don't need Pino Pagliara to tell us that.

comment by Ronny Van Banterous - It's only me!! (U5996)
posted 49 minutes ago
Giggs needs to have it done to him, the guys a god in the eyes of united fans and the media. It's like his shlt don't stink..

Shouldn't wish I'll on anyone but any of "the class of 92" being done is a good thing because they're worshipped in the eyes of the media and the fickle football fans have bought into that garbage.
------------------------

A huge generalisation there. Firstly, the media haven't brushed Giggs' indiscretions under the carpet - they were plastered all over the tabloids. His brother has given interviews on the subject slating Giggs and so has his sister in law (I forget her name). To make out like he has had an easy ride is simply incorrect.

Secondly, he has for many United fans let himself down. Some don't care about his private life in relation to our club, and believe that only his footballing life matters. Others feel that his lack of morals mean that he is an unsuitable future United manager and have voiced this opinion on these boards.

comment by LQ (U6305)
posted 45 minutes ago
Seriously though think back to that Bebe transfer.

No one else think that looked dodgy?
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We bought into the hype of a "promising" youngster who turned out not to be as good as we had hoped. Its not the first time that we have done it and it won't be the last. Take a look at any club in the PL and they will have done the same at some point.

It's the way the player was signed though.

Fergie said he hadn't seen him play didn't he?

comment by LQ (U6305)
posted 14 minutes ago
It's the way the player was signed though.

Fergie said he hadn't seen him play didn't he?
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That's correct. Our Portuguese scout was adamant that we had to sign him quickly before someone else signed him. I think I recall reading that there was some interest from Real at the time, but that could obviously have just been paper talk. SAF also spoke to Queiroz, who advised that we should sign him.

comment by LQ (U6305)
posted 1 hour, 5 minutes ago
It's the way the player was signed though.

Fergie said he hadn't seen him play didn't he?
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Seriously, do you think every manager goes and watches every single player he signs? It doesn't happen like that. Plenty of players will be signed on the say so of someone else.