An investigation by a newspaper has led to the firing of two England football officials. Two days after Sam Allardyce lost his job as England manager following an undercover operation by the Daily Telegraph, second-tier club Barnsley fired assistant coach Tommy Wright.
Wright was filmed apparently accepting an envelope which the Telegraph said contained 5,000 pounds from a fake Asian firm to help place players at the northern club. Video footage was released by the newspaper and Wright was immediately suspended by Barnsley. "After considering Wright's response to allegations about breaching (Football Association) rules over player transfers, Wright was dismissed," the club said.
Earlier, the English Football Association decided to terminate Allardyce's contract after video showed him appearing to offer advice to fictitious businessmen on how to sidestep an outlawed player transfer practice, and also negotiating a 400,000 pound public-speaking contract to top up an annual England salary of 3 million pounds.
The newspaper published an article last week with video of Southampton's assistant manager, Eric Black, allegedly telling undercover reporters that he knew a colleague at a second-tier club who could be persuaded to pass on information "for a couple of grand (thousand pounds)" about players to a fictitious company that wanted to represent footballers. The Telegraph said Black denied wrongdoing.
Southampton chairman Ralph Krueger, who has been in Toronto, said he didn't have enough information to make a judgment. "We will participate completely in the process to make sure that this is an opportunity for English football," Krueger said. "In regards to the situation with Eric, it's a personal issue for him. It has nothing directly to do with us as a club, but we will take proper procedure in the process."
Second-tier Queens Park Rangers is investigating footage that appeared to show its coach, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, seeking a fee of 55,000 pounds to work for a fake Far Eastern firm that suggested selling players to the second-tier London club. Hasselbaink denied any wrongdoing, saying he was offered a fee to make only a speech in Singapore and did not ask QPR to sign players said to have been represented by the fake firm. QPR said it had "every confidence" in Hasselbaink, and its chief executive and director of football spoke to Hasselbaink to get his version of events.
