Whites helping with FA bung inquiry (From The Bolton News)

Whites helping with FA bung inquiry

2:54pm Monday 17th July 2006 in

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BOLTON Wanderers say they are co-operating fully with the FA Premier League's bung inquiry.

The Whites are one of five Premiership clubs under investigation by the inquiry headed by former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Lord Stevens, after suspicions were raised over a number of transfer deals conducted between January 2004 and January 2006.

Manchester United, Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Portsmouth are also under scrutiny.

There is no indication which particular Bolton deals are being probed or whether they are suspected of serious breaches of the regulations governing payments to and from agents.

But Wanderers are understood to have already provided evidence to the Stevens inquiry and are believed not to be one of the clubs who have raised concerns by showing a reluctance to co-operate.

"Bolton Wanderers has and will continue to co-operate fully with the FA Premier League inquiry and we have got nothing to hide," a club spokesman said.

The investigation was launched in March after allegations by the former Luton manager, Mike Newell, and the then England head coach, Sven-Goran Eriksson, that there was a culture of illicit payments in top-flight football.

The first phase of the inquiry, which looked into 320 transfers and led to the chairmen and managers of 26 clubs being interviewed by the Stevens team of forensic accountants, led to the second phase of the investigation to focus on between 50 and 60 deals involving the five Premiership clubs.

The Premier League probe has been linked with a judicial inquiry in France, which has investigated the activities of Richard Bettoni. He is alleged to have acted as an unlicensed agent in the transfers of Djibril Cisse to Liverpool, Louis Saha to Manchester United and Jean-Alan Boumsong to Newcastle.