Soccer Stevens InquiryRelations between the England Football Association and the Premier League were last night strained almost to breaking point by suggestions in the Stevens Report that the governing body may not have a high enough level of performance to be a regulator.
The Premier League has paid £750,000 for Quest, the corporate intelligence agency run by the former London Metropolitan Police commissioner, Lord Stevens, to investigate 362 transfers involving its clubs over a two-year period. Stevens retains concerns over 17 transfers, having reduced his investigation from 39, and the Premier League has granted his firm additional time to probe those deals, which involve eight "major agents".
Details of a number of the transfers have been forwarded to the police, tax and VAT authorities for further inquiries. Stevens's team has no power of subpoena but it has built a sufficiently detailed picture of each of those transfers to request the assistance of the criminal authorities. Asked for his "gut feeling" over whether he sensed people are making money through crooked practices in football, Stevens responded in the affirmative.
"On the basis of the evidence in relation to some of the activities, yes," he said, before adding: "The Quest team has handed certain material to the authorities but because of the law they cannot comment further on this."
Stevens added Premiership clubs had displayed "scant disregard for the rules and regulations of this great game."
Indeed, three of the 29 clubs interviewed stated implausibly they did not know the rules. Nevertheless, and though almost five per cent of Premiership transfer activity from January 1st, 2004, to January 31st, 2006, remains under suspicion, the Premier League's chief executive, Richard Scudamore, sought to exonerate his clubs from culpability.
Instead he focused on the recommendations for the future governance of the game and said no indication would be given as to how many of his shareholder clubs remain under suspicion.
"The concentration is now on agents and a number of other parties, not clubs or club officials," he said. "In one sense (the clubs) are in the clear in that the investigation into them has finished. The whole purpose of this inquiry is to not only bring forward any evidence but bring forward recommendations for how processes and practices can be improved."
The report principally considers the flaws in the historical procedures of the FA's compliance department and provides 39 recommendations to professionalise regulation of the transfer market. The FA responded last night by deriding what turned out to be the central tenet of yesterday's news conference.
"While there was little detail concerning irregular transfer activities, at today's press conference Lord Stevens highlighted various criticisms of the FA and its compliance department," said the FA's chief executive Brian Barwick in a statement last night.
Barwick defended his organisation's recent record in reforming its compliance processes. "The overwhelming majority of these recommendations had already been formulated by the FA prior to his inquiry," he said.
The difficulties the FA has had implementing Burns were one of the items highlighted. "We are concerned at the length of time taken to address fundamental issues (raised by Burns) and what a repetition of such delays would suggest for the future," the report said. One key development Stevens called for was for an independent auditor to oversee the compliance unit's activities, a suggestion that had already gained favour within the FA.
"There must be an audit of the proportion of the transfers in each transfer in each transfer window," said Stevens. "The FA and the compliance unit do not have the credibility of the general public or the clubs. The proposed regulation and compliance unit must be established with expertise and independence to take on this work. Part of the FA's problems has been the lack of forensic investigators and accountants. The work must be preventative."
