August 30 – An undercover newspaper investigation that led to Sam Allardyce’s exit as England manager after just 67 days was “justified in the public interest”, a report has found.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation was responding to 25 complaints lodged about the story in the Daily Telegraph. It ruled in favour of the Telegraph in 22 of those but has ordered the paper to publish a correction on three points of accuracy.
Allardyce had just been appointed to the England job in 2016 when the Telegraph ran the investigation. He was secretly recorded telling undercover reporters posing as businessmen that he knew how to “get around” player transfer regulations.
In his complaint Allardyce argued that the level of subterfuge employed by the newspaper had been “unjustified” and that the findings had been published in an “inaccurate and misleading way.”
But the IPSO found that the level of subterfuge employed “was proportionate to the public interest identified.” It stated that the material required could not have been obtained by open means.
The regulator concluded that while Allardyce, who was due to earn £3 million a year as England manager, did not break Football Association rules he did “show a disregard for them” by discussing rules regarding the third-party ownership of players – a practice banned in England and “widely regarded as ethically wrong” and there was a clear public interest in reporting this.
The 17,000-word ruling was delivered following an investigation into complaints by Allardyce, his agent Shane Moloney, and accountant Mark Curtis that they had been misrepresented and their quotes taken out of context.
In a statement, Allardyce insisted that IPSO’s ruling was flawed, the Telegraph “had put words into my mouth” and called on the journalists involved to hand back awards they won for the coverage.
He also criticised the leadership of the FA and how they handled their response to the story.
“It was clear that those that I was dealing with were more concerned with their own image than getting to the truth of what had occurred,” he stated.
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