Wanderers' worst fears have been confirmed when it was revealed that key defender Florent Laville will be out of action for a minimum of six months after scans on the knee injury he suffered during the 2-0 victory against Middlesbrough.

The French defender, who signed a two-year deal in the close season after impressing on loan last term, ruptured a cruciate ligament in his left knee in the 26th minute of the game against Boro.

Manager Sam Allardyce said: Its come as a massive blow to the football club especially as its an area where we are short in numbers. With it happening early on in the season it leaves us until January to get somebody else in unless we can find an out-of-contract player somewhere in the world to fill the gap.

Earlier, Wanderers chief Phil Gartside insisted today that the club has no case to answer to a complaint from a football agent who claims to have brokered the Jay-Jay Okocha transfer.

FIFA, the sport's world governing body, say they are investigating an allegation that the Nigerian World Cup star negotiated his own transfer from Paris St Germain in June last year, despite having signed an agreement giving exclusive negotiating rights to a Glasgow-based company.

The company, SMS Sports Management Services Ltd, claim the transfer was effectively hijacked by Craig Allardyce - the son of Wanderers' manager Sam - who they allege told Okocha to deal only with his company, Sports Player Management Ltd.

Alex McLaughlin of SMS says his company is owed £300,000 as the agent fee agreed in advance with Okocha for helping him secure a two-year contract worth more than £3 million after tax.

Okocha, now skipper of Wanderers, does not dispute that he had an agreement with SMS but says they were not entitled to any commission because after they failed to negotiate a deal he arranged the transfer himself, dealing directly with Wanderers.

Gartside says Wanderers never had any arrangement with SMS and have never dealt with Craig Allardyce to avoid any possible conflict of interests.

He confirmed the involvement of Allardyce's associate Mark Curtis, who is retained by Wanderers for a £25,000 a year fee, but insists: "Craig Allardyce has never done any business for or on behalf of this club.

"He has a clause in his contract that says he cannot work on our behalf. We didn't put that clause in, Mark Curtis did.

"Mark does work for me and is held on a retainer. He's Sam's agent and he's streetwise. I didn't know any agents when I became chairman of the club so it was important to get someone who knew the ropes.

"This whole business is about an agent who feels sore that he has missed out on a fee for doing nothing more than making a phone call. But there were at least three and as many as five different agents who contacted us at the time to say they were acting on Jay-Jay's behalf. If Jay-Jay feels he should pay the agents, that's up to him but the fact is that we negotiated directly with him and not through an agent. We've spoken to FIFA and we feel we have no case to answer."

The SMS allegation in a Sunday newspaper came just days after Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson revealed he made a stand against "obscene" agent fees when he scrapped plans to sign Fulham's Sean Davis for £5.5m after being told he would have to pay £700,000 to an agent before being allowed to speak to the player.

The same agent claiming to act on behalf of Emerson Thome is understood to be demanding a £200,000 fee for setting up the Brazilian's free transfer from Sunderland to Wanderers but both clubs insist they dealt direct and no agents were involved.

"Thome was under contract and we simply took over that contract," Gartside said.