Allardyce: Key quotes

The FA have asked for the “full facts” following a newspaper sting on England manager Sam Allardyce, but what did he say?

A report in The Daily Telegraph claims Allardyce told undercover reporters posing as businessmen it was possible to “get around” an FA rule, introduced in 2008, banning third parties from owning part of a player’s economic rights. 

The report also alleges Allardyce, who has only been in the job since July, mocked predecessor Roy Hodgson, while the 61-year-old also discusses England’s Euro 2016 exit, Gary Neville, team selections and potential conflict in speaking engagements.

However, Allardyce also explained that principally the speaking role would only conflict with the England manager’s role if he was advising on players and transfers and that he could not be described as a ‘strategic adviser’, while his agent, Mark Curtis, also present at the meeting, said Allardyce would have to run anything by “the powers that be”.

Asked for a response to the report, an FA spokesman said: “We have asked The Daily Telegraph to provide us with the full facts in relation to this matter.”

Allardyce failed to respond to requests for a comment.

Below, we look at the key quotes from the newspaper report, published on Monday evening.

On third-party ownership…

“It’s not a problem,” Allardyce said. “You can still get around it. I mean obviously the big money’s here.”

“What they would be better doing is making sure they’ve got ownership and the agent. So they own the agent, the agent works for them as well. Because then if he gets sold on again, the agent will get more money if he gets sold on again.

“You get a percentage of a player’s agent’s fee, that the agent pays to you, the company, because he’s done that new deal at that club again.

“Or they sell him on, and you’re not getting a part of the transfer fee anymore, because you can’t do that, but because of the size of the contracts now, the contract will be worth £30m, £40m, at 10 per cent.  And you get, you’ve done a deal with the agent where you get five per cent of the agent’s fee, which is massive for doing about two hours’ work.”

Allardyce also said: “It’s not a problem… we got [Enner] Valencia in. He was third-party owned when we bought him from Mexico,” though it must be noted that the third-party ownership arrangement ended on the transfer and West Ham did acquire the player as a “whole”.

On Roy Hodgson…

Asked if the former England manager had outside earnings in the form of public speaking, Allardyce said: “No, he wouldn’t want to, he’d send them all to sleep, Roy. Woy. He hasn’t got the personality for it.”

Allardyce also went on to discuss Hodgson and …

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