Newcastle - Portsmouth - Rangers Raided

[all_funkt_up]

Well well well.

Interesting story to emerge over the last 24 hours here. The Toon, Pompey and the Hun have all been raided by Police as well as 2 residential addresses. The raids are thought to have some connection with the football corruption investigation by the Stevens Inquiry. Basically, someone's had their hands in the till and there's obviously a money trail to prove it.

There were a few transfers being reviewed for possible legal action following the inquiry into bungs and illegal payments in football. Three clubs are suspected and for my money, the transfers that they are looking into I think are Amdy Faye to Newcastle (from Pompey) and Boumsong to Newcastle (from Rangers).

Here's the full list of transfers that Lord Stevens wasnt entirely happy with:

–– Albert Luque
£9.5m to Newcastle United from Deportivo La Coruña
–– Emre Belözoglu
£3.8m to Newcastle from Inter Milan
–– Jean Alain Boumsong
£8m to Newcastle from Rangers
–– Amdy Faye
£2m to Newcastle from Portsmouth
–– Collins Mbesuma
Free to Portsmouth from Kaiser Chiefs
–– Benjani Mwaruwari
£4.1m to Portsmouth from Auxerre
–– Aliou Cissé
£300,000 to Portsmouth from Birmingham City
–– Yakubu Ayegbeni
£7.5m to Middlesbrough from Portsmouth
–– Fabio Rochemback
£1m to Middlesbrough from Sporting Lisbon
–– Didier Drogba
£24m to Chelsea from Marseilles
–– Petr Cech
£7m to Chelsea from Rennes
–– Ali Al-Habsi
Free to Bolton Wanderers from Lyn Oslo
–– Tal Ben Haim
£150,000 to Bolton from Maccabi Tel Aviv
–– Blessing Kaku
Free to Bolton from MS Ashdod
–– Júlio César
Free to Bolton from Real Madrid
–– Michael Essien
£24.4m to Chelsea from Lyons

Got to be those two I have listed hasnt it.

Worth noting too, that Willy MacKay (the agent) has offices in St James' Park as well and as yet, it isnt clear if he is involved with this.

Graeme Souness was in charge of Newcastle when both Faye and Boumsong were bought wasnt he? And he has a connection with Rangers too.... Hmmmmmmmm

[crowie]

A bit of chat on the Scotland board about this, with Rangers being involved.

The Boumsong fee is well dodgy. £8m for a boy who had 6 good months and who arrived on a Bosman at the start of that season.

As for Luque at £9.5m, surely there is a decimal point in the wrong place for that fee.

[all_funkt_up]

I think the fee is mad. How much of that actually went to Rangers and how much went to the agent we dont know. One would imagine that a fair old slice went to the agent concerned and possibly some of that happened to find its way to the bank account of one Mr G Souness.

Who knows, its all speculation at this point in time.

[crowie]

There was a fair bit of rumour around Scotland when he signed for Der Hun that he/agent were on half of any future transfer fees when/if Rangers sold him. Just didn't think it would be as obvious as 6 months after he signed and for as much as £8m.

Seriously, I think half of that fee went walkabout somewhere between leaving Newcastle and hitting Rangers bank account.

[andeeeee]

makes you wonder why he (boumsong)chose rangers over the 5timers

[andeeeee]

suppose the police have saved themselves a drive down to bolton now

[crowie]

Originally Posted by andeeeee

makes you wonder why he (boumsong)chose rangers over the 5timers

Exactly andeeee. He had a good rep in France, looked to be on his way to way to Liverpool and then came out with some crap about not having time to wait for Liverpool to come in for him when he signed for Rangers.

[all_funkt_up]

Some reaction to the story from today's Times, Willy McKay goes on the defensive. Interestingly enough, in the article, it says he was with Charles N'zogbia yesterday and knows nothing of the raids.

That no doubt means that N'Zogbia will be headed to another club in the not too distant future then.

Originally Posted by The Times Online

The agent at the centre of inquiries into allegations of corruption in football has denied any wrongdoing and vowed to clear his name. Willie McKay became the focus of attention after it emerged that he had been involved in transfer deals between the three clubs – Newcastle United, Portsmouth and Rangers – whose offices were raided by City of London Police on Monday.

“It’s not me,” McKay, 47, said yesterday. “I have no idea what they are doing. All I can do is carry on doing my job of selling players. I think you will probably find that when it all comes out, it will be nothing. I was in Newcastle yesterday with Charles N’Zogbia [the midfield player]. I don’t know whose homes police went to, but it wasn’t mine.”

McKay represented Jean Alain Boumsong in his £8 million transfer from Rangers to Newcastle and Amdy Faye in his £2 million move from Portsmouth to St James’ Park, both in January 2005. The transfers were two of the 17 that were not cleared last month by the inquiry into alleged irregular payments from transfers, conducted by Quest and headed by Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington. The inquiry found no evidence of irregular payments to club officials or players.

“I have been involved in many, many transfers,” McKay said. “The FA have got all the paperwork. Go there and see if they have any problems with the paperwork.”

Related Links
Boumsong’s journey from Desailly’s heir to French farce
Newcastle at the heart of corruption investigation
Inquiries follow hot on heels of Stevens report
An FA spokesman declined to comment on McKay’s claim yesterday. “There are no simple answers in this case,” he said.

Eyebrows were raised when Newcastle, who were managed at the time by Graeme Souness, agreed to pay £8 million for Boumsong only six months after he had joined Rangers on a free transfer from Auxerre. Souness, who has been cleared of any wrongdoing by Stevens’s inquiry, expected the France centre back to be in the class of Rio Ferdinand or John Terry, the England defenders, but Boumsong was held in low regard by Newcastle supporters and he endured a nightmare 18-month spell on Tyneside before he was sold to Juventus for £3.3 million.

“Jean Alain Boumsong played for France,” McKay said. “How many members of the France squad can you buy for less than £10 million? Ask Martin O’Neill what a good player he is. He tried to sign him. Ask Gérard Houllier, who wanted to buy him when he was at Liverpool. Ask Inter Milan, ask Barcelona. I rest my case.”

McKay has denied that his home in the North East was one of two houses raided by police on Monday and the family of Freddy Shepherd, the Newcastle chairman, have insisted that they are not involved in the investigation. “Photographers have been circling Freddy’s house, but he has nothing to do with what has happened,” a family spokesman said. “Nobody knows anything about what is alleged to have gone on. Everyone at Newcastle would love to find out, so action could be taken by the club, if necessary.”

While City of London Police officers sifted through the evidence that they had gathered, the chairman of a Football League club contacted by The Times suggested yesterday that the police investigation centred on allegations of VAT fraud and money-laundering. “I don’t think this is just about bungs,” he said.

A spokesman for Quest, an independent company that specialises in security investigations, refused to confirm whether McKay had complied with the request made by Stevens last month to provide more information about the transfers of Boumsong and Faye. “Investigations are ongoing and there is a lot of work still to do,” the spokesman said.