by Tom Bower
Since Venables refused to resign, Sugar required a majority of the directors to approve the manager’s dismissal. His method was unorthodox. At Highbury on 11 May 1993, during a match against Arsenal, Sugar convened a ‘board meeting’ of directors without telling Venables and Jonathan Crystal. ‘I was at the match and I’m the company secretary,’ said John Ireland later, ‘and I didn’t know there was a board meeting.’ Tony Berry was only told about the board meeting after arriving at Highbury. ‘It seemed the right thing to do at the time,’ he told a friend. The board minutes circulated the following day recorded that Venables’s dismissal had been approved. After Ireland protested, a proper board meeting was convened and Venables’s dismissal was ratified.
The violence after the news of Venables’s dismissal was spontaneous; he was loved by Tottenham’s supporters. Fans stormed Sugar’s home, car and the man himself. Under siege, Sugar plotted to destroy Venables and his supporters. ‘They’re all fucking crooks,’ he ranted, consciously cutting corners to dislodge Venables.
In June 1993, Sugar published his affidavit denouncing Clough and his fondness for bungs. The conspirators were alarmed. Nearly one year after the Sheringham transfer, McLintock sent a new invoice dated 27 August 1992 for £50,000 to Tottenham. McLintock’s invoice described the payment as ‘assistance in arranging a distribution and merchandising network on behalf of Tottenham Hotspur’. Simultaneously, First Wave, his company, made a voluntary disclosure to Customs and Excise admitting its failure to declare the VAT for the £50,000 fee. The paperwork, explained the directors, was missing.
Venables’s counter-attack against Alan Sugar was suffocated by aggressive legal tactics. A petition was presented to the court by Sugar’s lawyers demanding that Venables deliver security for costs, which Sugar anticipated Venables would find impossible to fulfil. Another petition requested the winding up of Edennote, his private company, to prevent him suing Tottenham for wrongful dismissal. Stymied, Venables reluctantly sold his Tottenham shares and resigned as coach, but he was unwilling to surrender. Football was his life’s passion, not an agent for his destruction; he was a fighter, even when the cause appeared to be lost. Unlike Sugar, Venables understood that football’s potentates detested narks.
3
THE RELUCTANT INVESTIGATORS
‘Cloughie likes a bung’ was too raw for football’s regulators. Neither Graham Kelly, the modest chief executive of the FA, nor Rick Parry, the Premier League’s chief executive, wanted to believe Sugar’s megaphone denunciation of football’s corruption. Unfortunately, his affidavit condemning Venables was too explicit to ignore.
Reluctantly, Kelly and Parry visited Sugar at Amstrad’s headquarters in Brentwood. Their encounter was fraught. The visitors shared little in common with their host, a disliked outsider, unwilling to dissemble the truth and embrace football’s gospel. Sugar had prepared his case but, to his irritation, Kelly only stayed briefly and departed for another engagement. Proudly ‘open-minded’, Kelly had arrived without suspicions about Clough and Venables and departed without suspicions about Clough and Venables. Kelly was instinctively unreceptive. Morality was irrelevant. ‘I was too remote to hear about “bungs” and I didn’t go looking for evidence,’ he said later. In Kelly’s opinion, the dispute concerning ‘bungs’ was more a clash of personalities between Sugar and Venables than anything else.
Rick Parry remained in Sugar’s office to glance through the files; he realized that the documents and numbers of people involved could not be buried internally. The evidence and Sugar’s attitude required a formal, legal inquiry. Unlike most people in football Parry was prepared to draw a sharp distinction between Venables as the outstanding football coach and his non-field activities which, he told friends, ‘stank’.
Days later Rick Parry listened to Graham Kelly’s scepticism. ‘Sugar,’ Kelly mumbled, ‘couldn’t have been so pure and innocent. Why did he wait for over one year before telling anyone?’ Sugar’s bellicose manner, Kelly thought, made it hard to be sympathetic. Others in football’s fraternity were right, continued Kelly, that it was ‘bizarre that Sugar did not know why Venables wanted £58,750 in cash for the agents’. Parry agreed. Sugar promoted himself as a brash street-fighter but was suddenly pleading naivety. But, sensitive to public pressure incited by the intense media battle between Sugar and Venables, the Premier League, he declared, could not ignore the evidence. Kelly remained unconvinced but nevertheless, without enthusiasm, agreed to lunch with Sugar. Afterwards, Kelly remained unsympathetic but bowed to the inevitable inquiry.
On 13 June 1993, the Premier League announced a panel to inquire into all the financial arrangements between Premier League clubs, players and agents with the power to demand documents and attendance for interview of those under the FA’s control. The three appointed to undertake the inquiry were Rick Parry, Robert Reid QC, an independent expert in sports law, and Steve Coppell, who had recently resigned after nine years as manager of Crystal Palace. Like Kelly, Coppell was sceptical that bungs had been paid. Parry was neutral. Robert Reid was suspicious, demanding that the subordinates as well as their managers should be investigated. Those disagreements were concealed at the public launch of the inquiry four months later at the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane. A definitive report, promised Parry, would be delivered in ‘double quick time’. Parry was optimistic. None of the three panellists had foreseen problems in discovering the truth about bungs. Yet in a business conducted orally, without a paper trail, unearthing incriminating evidence was difficult. Compounding the problems was the continuing public feud between Terry Venables and Alan Sugar.
The destruction of Venables in the media had been orchestrated by Nick Hewer, an astute public relations expert retained by Sugar. ‘Alan wants Venables blown out of the water,’ Hewer told Tony Yorke, one of many journalists Hewer cultivated to wage Sugar’s war. Initially, Yorke appeared to be sympathetic but gradually the journalist became disillusioned and switched sides, accepting Venables’s contention that Irving Scholar had masterminded the secret payments, leaving Venables to bear the blame. Yorke’s conversion alarmed Hewer. ‘Take Yorke off the fucking story,’ Sugar screamed at the editor of the People newspaper. Sugar’s abuse convinced the newspaper’s editor that Yorke’s instincts were sound. In the continuing dogfight, Hewer’s success was to secure other journalists, including Harry Harris of the Daily Mirror, to support Sugar. The revenge against Hewer was the publication of his memorandum to Sugar, which boasted that he was controlling the production of a television documentary denigrating Venables. This was broadcast on the Dispatches programme by Channel 4. Hewer’s application for an injunction to prevent publication of his memorandum failed, but securing two major television documentaries to demonize Venables was his master-stroke.
Producers of the television rivals Panorama and Dispatches had simultaneously obtained documents which had been purloined by a disgruntled former employee of Eddie Ashby. The documents proved Venables’s secret loan of £1 million to purchase Tottenham’s shares from Landhurst, the finance company, on the basis of a false declaration of his assets. After seeing the documents, Tony Berry had said, ‘This might solve a few problems.’
The principal document was a photocopy of Venables’s signed personal guarantee for the £1 million loan from Landhurst. The original had disappeared from Landhurst’s safe on the day the company was declared insolvent. Venables disowned the photocopy. ‘That’s not my signature,’ he would exclaim. ‘It’s a forgery.’ Subsequent examination of the signature on the photocopy by G. G. Jenkinson, a forensic scientist employed as a government chemist, contradicted Venables’s denials. The signature, Jenkinson reported to BBC Television, was ‘full positive’. Since his signature was apparently irrefutable, Venables’s duplicity was confirmed. Venables nevertheless believed that he could outface his accusers. ‘He’s like nailing jelly to the wall,’ said an admirer, preferring to believe in common with many that Venables was naive or too trusting rather than dishonest. Under the rut
hless onslaught of Sugar’s denigration, Venables and his allies counter-attacked.
Gino Santin sued BBC Television for Panorama’s defamatory accusation that he unjustly earned £200,000 from Tottenham for Gascoigne’s transfer and won £150,000 in damages; and Eddie Ashby gave the ‘Barnes file’ to Tony Yorke for publication in the People and to Granada TV’s World in Action. On 26 November 1993, Alan Sugar was interviewed by Granada TV about Tottenham’s secret payments, undisclosed by Tottenham since the takeover two years earlier. The embarrassment for Sugar was painful. Before the programme was transmitted, Sugar formally told the Premier League about the payments.
The public exposure of the ‘Barnes file’ coincided with the completion of a fifteen-month investigation of Tottenham’s finances by Paul Kendrew of the Inland Revenue’s Special Office. The Inland Revenue agreed to accept £500,000 in unpaid taxes from Tottenham for the undisclosed ‘loans’ to players; at this time the Revenue’s demand had not yet been formally disclosed to the club’s shareholders. The satisfaction of stoking up embarrassment was only a respite for Venables.
The Panorama programme in September 1993 sparked a further investigation by Paul Kendrew into Venables’s personal finances and his decision to allow Ashby, a bankrupt, to manage his companies. The investigator was helped by Sugar, providing information about Venables’s false declarations in order to raise money to buy the Tottenham shares. Venables’s vulnerability was aggravated by his failure to submit tax returns since 1990 and Kendrew’s discovery of a letter from Venables dated 22 January 1993 asking to be paid for an after-dinner speech in cash. Challenged by Kendrew, Venables told him that he never used cash, a surprise to those who recalled Venables pulling wodges of banknotes out of his pocket because he had lost his credit card. Unwilling to provide any evidence to the Inland Revenue about the source of his cash, Venables sought salvation by ignoring Kendrew’s requests for information. The official’s response was polite. ‘I am bitterly disappointed,’ complained Kendrew, ‘not to have received any kind of written progress report in this matter as repeatedly promised.’ Venables’s predicament was aggravated by a financially ruinous battle in the courts. In early 1994, he was engaged in six libel actions, eight further trials in the High Court, six official inquiries and four police investigations. In consolation, he could smile that Sugar’s declaration of war against him had triggered retaliation by the Inland Revenue against football.
Paul Kendrew and other Inland Revenue investigators suspected football’s finances to be dishonest. Using their draconian powers, Revenue officers had hoovered up club records and quoted the results as confirmation of their suspicions. Few of the major clubs possessed organized files. Their sloppy records and reliance on back-dating aggravated the distrust. Every transfer was, in the investigators’ opinion, probably corrupt, and they were suspicious also of the clubs’ pension schemes. Uncritically, the officers believed the rash of newspaper stories about transfer prices and ‘bungs’ and threatened to raid every English football club. The widening investigation was in danger of overwhelming the Revenue’s resources. Internally, their task was described as ‘a nightmare’. To overcome their limitations and persuade clubs to ‘come clean’, the Inland Revenue’s press office began disclosing their suspicions and discoveries to trusted journalists. In return, each article was scrutinized by the Revenue before publication. To the officials’ satisfaction, newspaper headlines pronounced ‘Millions Missing’ from Britain’s major football clubs. ‘This is very painful for football,’ complained Rick Parry. The Revenue was undoubtedly a powerful force for change, he protested to the Treasury, but their investigators were ‘naive. Backdating is not criminal. The leaks to the press are outrageous.’ In justification of their tactics the Revenue’s investigators exclaimed, ‘There’s £20 million in unpaid taxes.’
Reform of the club’s financial auditing depended upon the FA and in particular Graham Kelly. During a visit by Roger Bonas, a Revenue investigator, Kelly was told, ‘football’s finances are a shambles. There’s no control over the cash.’ Kelly, a former bank clerk, was alarmed. ‘I wanted to know the details about the shady deals. It was just what I wanted to know.’ Kelly ordered Nic Coward to draft letters asking Rick Parry and the Premier League clubs to provide details of their transgressions and settlements with the Inland Revenue. ‘It was the ideal opportunity to clean up,’ explained Kelly. The letter could only be dispatched with the assent of the FA’s Executive Committee. Keith Wiseman, a representative of the Premier League on the FA Council, and senior members of the FA’s board including David Dein, refused that permission. Rick Parry, the chief executive of the Premier League, confirmed that the clubs would not voluntarily disclose the information to prejudiced Revenue officers. Skilfully, he had persuaded the Treasury that encroaching upon the sovereignty of England’s major football clubs was perilous and pointless. The Treasury ordered the Revenue to cease their guerrilla war. The national sport and its participants appeared to be immune from parliament’s laws. ‘There was never a conclusion,’ lamented Kelly. ‘Those around the FA table did not want to create waves. No one wanted the ultimate argument and to dig that far. No one in the FA wanted to rock the boat.’
That conclusion surprised Alan Sugar. In football’s freemasonry, he discovered, Terry Venables was prized and protected while he, as the outsider, was condemned. At the FA’s headquarters, Sugar’s dispute with Venables was treated with disdain. Graham Kelly’s search for a new coach for the England team had focused on Venables as the outstanding candidate to save the nation’s reputation. The allegations of Venables’s dishonesty would not, Kelly resolved, be allowed to interfere in the selection. ‘I led the consensus to appoint the best man and ignore Venables’s business dodginess,’ he proudly asserted. ‘I hadn’t seen any evidence to disqualify him as coach. Terry contested Panorama’s allegations and I was happy to accept his assurances.’ Sugar’s opposition and his long letters, which Kelly found ‘frightening’, encouraged Kelly’s prejudice. To prevent Sugar’s threat to undermine Venables’s appointment, Kelly agreed to meet Sugar at Herbert Smith’s, the solicitors, to agree a settlement. By the end of the second long meeting, Kelly complained, ‘It’s like negotiating with Genghis Khan.’ Entrenched, Sugar was determined to defeat Venables. ‘I’ve never met anyone like Sugar before,’ Kelly told his staff, his antagonism inflamed. ‘He doesn’t love football. I don’t know why he’s in football. We’re in for a long, hard fight.’ Venables’s appointment, despite Sugar, was supported by Rick Parry. Neither Venables’s role in the Sheringham transfer, nor the allegations of dishonesty regarding his purchase of Tottenham in the second Panorama programme, would be allowed to hinder his appointment in England’s interest.
In a final salvo, Sugar hoped that an authoritative description of Venables’s misconduct written by Mark Killick and Martin Bashir, both responsible for the Panorama programme, to be published in the Financial Times on Monday 25 January 1994, would dissuade the FA from the appointment. Sugar was disappointed. An article by Tony Yorke on the previous day in the Sunday Mirror, endorsing Venables as England’s ideal coach, persuaded Bert Millichip, the FA’s narcissistic chairman, to support Venables. The appointment was announced on 25 January 1994. ‘I never had any doubts,’ Kelly insisted. ‘Venables was protected by Kelly,’ Sugar protested. Kelly agreed; in his opinion Sugar was the villain and Tottenham should be punished.
In a display of disdain for Tottenham and Alan Sugar, the FA’s penalty for Tottenham’s failure to disclose all the club payments to its players was a fine against the club of £600,000, the deduction of twelve points from the club’s total in the Premier League and the exclusion of Tottenham for one season from the FA Cup. Sugar’s curses were unprintable. Wilfully, the FA had tarnished Sugar with the crime. Despite his confession to the Premier League of the sins committed by the previous owners, Sugar had not anticipated the FA’s venom. The businessman’s outrage pleased Kelly. ‘Tottenham was a big club with a history of misdemea
nours,’ explained Kelly. ‘Sugar thought the punishment was vindictive but I was comfortable with the penalty.’ Critics were reminded by Kelly that in 1990 Swindon had been demoted from the First to the Third Division and lost eleven points for offering secret inducements to players. ‘No one complained that was harsh,’ recalled Kelly inaccurately.
The atmosphere among the football community appeared to be bitter. Football’s chiefs, seemingly embarrassed by the public recrimination, spoke about searching for culprits and invoking remedies. The image of a business tortured by self-examination and self-criticism was, however, false. Graham Kelly, Keith Wiseman, Rick Parry and the executives of England’s major clubs resented criticism and interference by outsiders in their affairs. Among many in the football fraternity, there was no sense of shame or blame, but a singular desire to enjoy their sport and its social life. Ever since the creation of the Premier League, the senior members of the FA, a combination of professionals and amateurs, had floundered uncertainly without any vision. Graham Kelly, a decent administrator promoted beyond his abilities, appeared to reinforce his organization’s impotence. He echoed the popular opinion that Clough, Venables and Tottenham were not scandals impugning the integrity of their business but were merely mavericks who had generated unfortunate publicity. ‘The beautiful game has become a vehicle for intruders,’ commented Rob Hughes in The Times, identifying the agents as vultures. In Kelly’s interpretation, the vulture was Alan Sugar.
