Peter Harrison - Football Agent

Paully D

For anyone who's not familiar with him, he's a football agent who has been in the game for 20 years and he reckons he's going to blow the lid on corruption in the game.

Any of you read this open letter he has sent to Phil Gartside, Bolton chairman?

http://www.mannyroad.co.uk/component/k2/item/105-peter-harrison-an-open-letter-to-phil-gartside

Over the last few months, ex-football agent Peter Harrison has made a number of allegations against Phil Gartside on social networking site, Twitter. Here, in an open letter to the Bolton chairman, he explains the motives behind his actions.

Dear Phil,

Over the last few months another agent and I have attacked you on Twitter about the way you run Bolton Wanderers Football Club. You have never once replied to our accusations or tried to sue us, which seems strange given the things that have been said.

I would just like to explain to the supporters who think that I am having a go at you because I am bitter about you maybe cutting me out of a deal, or as some of them keep mentioning, because I lost Andy Carroll, (although he does not play for Bolton so that’s a bit confusing.)

No Phil, I am having a dig at you because you are an embarrassment to BWFC because of your close association with the agent Mark Curtis. This man is probably the most hated agent in football as he has tapped up so many players, many who were about to sign or had signed at your club, and nothing is ever done about it. Agents have complained time again about this, but Curtis always gets away with it. It is the belief in football amongst agents that you, through your position on the FA Panel, are protecting him.

Now, agents do lose players, but it seems to happen a lot at Bolton, and agents are frightened to put players to the club, as if they are very good, then they normally get tapped up by your mate and a blind eye is turned to this.

Phil, I was working as an agent at BWFC before you were chairman and it was an excellent, friendly club - my second club, although I liked going there so much I was there more than at my first love, Newcastle United.

I brought Eidur Gudjohnsen to the club on a free transfer, Ali Al Habsi on a free transfer and represented Gudni Bergsson, and Mick Whitlow. I brought Fredi Bobic to the club, Nakata, and of course represented Jussi for many years.

So Phil, I know and knew the club quite well. What bothers me, Phil is that I have negotiated players contracts with you, as have many other agents, and you are very good and capable at doing the negotiations. So why did you start insisting that Mark Curtis has to represent the club when negotiating a contract and therefore paying him a substantial commission.

Lots of people are talking about this Phil, and are saying that this just does not seem right. Why pay big commissions to an agent, especially one that has been in trouble so many times with the FA and fined by FIFA, when you are capable of doing it for the club and thus saving the club money.

I know you are BWFC’s biggest fan (earning £350,000 per year plus substantial bonuses) but do you not think that you need to be cutting costs at the club because of the financial problems they are having? The first thing a sensible chairman would do is cut the costs and one of the costs to be cut should be stop paying an agent money for a job that you can do.

I would gladly represent the club for free and I am sure there is a Bolton supporter out there who would love to be Chairman and not take a salary. C’mon Phil, stop all this whispering going on in football and run the club properly. Be open and honest to your fans.

If you have nothing to hide then please tell your supporters how much commission you have paid to Mark Curtis and his co Director David Bromley over the last ten years. Enough I say to have bought two players who could now be helping you fight relegation.

So Phil, what’s your reply going to be? Silence? Or maybe your mate at the FA might stick up for you like the last time. Whatever your reply, the whispering and accusations will continue unless things change in the way you run your club.

You are a FA board member Phil, the same board who after their failed World Cup bid, complained that FIFA had to be more transparent. Yes, transparent Phil, so show some leadership and come clean on how much of your supporters’ money you have given to Mark Curtis. The FA surely want to prove how transparent English Football is and to put an end to all this nudge, nudge, wink, wink that goes on when your name and Mark Curtis’s name is mentioned.

Finally Phil where has all the club money gone? When you look at your Squad you have not spent massively and your wage bill is not that big, so why is the club in so much debt? How come they are over £100 million in debt yet you have received £120 million in Sky money over the last 3 years. It does not add up Phil and hardly merits a bonus!

Something’s not right here mate. Transparency, that’s what everyone is calling for. You owe it to your fellow fans. C’mon Phil, speak.

Over to you Phil, Bolton fan and proud Chairman.

Yours,
Peter Harrison

Obviously he seems very bitter but there's no doubt in my mind that things like this happen quite a lot in football.

This looks like just the start from him.

Also, his Twitter page is quite interesting, there's some stuff there about Allardyce, Brown, Redknapp and Andy Carroll:

http://twitter.com/#!/agenth058

Sir Gallagher

He seems deranged.

Dempsey

Better have something more than my word against his

Samich

interesting.

Samich

Peter Harrison
I can tell you who the three bent managers are but I must change their identities to woman's names for legal reasons.

Marry-lees, Fat Pam, and sun bed Phil, short for Phyllis, all corrupt and should be run out of the game.

Who's he on about?

Oh he says, Phil Brown, Sam Allardyce and 'Arry.

Wouldn't be the too surprised to hear tbh.

Guy:Incognito

Presumably Harrison has been a model agent and done everything by the book?

Blatter

Are Bolton actually over £100 million in debt?

opr

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Presumably Harrison has been a model agent and done everything by the book?

No and he seems to have lost his mind since he missed out on the Andy Carroll fee. It was all a little strange as he was still Andy's agent at the time but in stepped Curtis and did the deal with Liverpool.

Opr

Samich

opr wrote: »

No and he seems to have lost his mind since he missed out on the Andy Carroll fee. It was all a little strange as he was still Andy's agent at the time but in stepped Curtis and did the deal with Liverpool.

Opr

How could Curtis get in and do a deal with Liverpool?

Was Harrison Carrolls agent or what?

opr

Samich wrote: »

How could Curtis get in and do a deal with Liverpool?

Was Harrison Carrolls agent or what?

From what I remember reading Harrison was Carrolls agent at the time. They were actually quite close, he had gotten Andy his first contract at Newcastle and helped him out with some 'bother' in the past.

Not really sure on the details of how Curtis managed to step in and do the deal.

Opr

Paully D

Samich wrote: »

How could Curtis get in and do a deal with Liverpool?

Was Harrison Carrolls agent or what?

Harrison brought a case to the FA about it as Carroll was still under contract to him until March (he moved in January) but the FA found against Harrision.

Funnily enough, Gartside works with the FA and this is one of the reasons Harrison isn't happy as he claims Curtis has got away with all of this due to Gartside pulling strings at the FA.

As it says in the open letter, Curtis is good friends with Gartside and has been doing loads of well paid work for him at Bolton, work that Harrision claims is unnecessary as Gartside is more than capable of saving the club hundreds of thousands by doing it himself.

Samich

'I keep talking about Andy Carroll, but in my opinion he was poached from me. When Liverpool signed Andy they brought in someone to act on behalf of the club to broker the deal even though Damien Comolli is their sporting director.

'Why do they need an agent on transfer deadline day? Surely they just pick up the phone to Newcastle and ask, "How much for Andy Carroll?" Something's wrong with the game when it comes to that.

What does he mean by this? Who would benefit from this and what dodgy stuff is going on?

Blatter

Samich wrote: »

How could Curtis get in and do a deal with Liverpool?

Was Harrison Carrolls agent or what?

Basically Harrison claimed that Carroll was 'tapped up' by Curtis just before the Carroll move to Liverpool. It is illegal for agents to try and poach players in such a manner but difficult to prove.

Curtis obviously convinced Carroll he could get him more money, makes no sense to change agent otherwise.

opr

Samich wrote: »

'I keep talking about Andy Carroll, but in my opinion he was poached from me. When Liverpool signed Andy they brought in someone to act on behalf of the club to broker the deal even though Damien Comolli is their sporting director.

'Why do they need an agent on transfer deadline day? Surely they just pick up the phone to Newcastle and ask, "How much for Andy Carroll?" Something's wrong with the game when it comes to that.

What does he mean by this? Who would benefit from this and what dodgy stuff is going on?

All he's insinuating above is why does football in general need the agent at all? Why the hell can't Liverpool just ring Newcastle and do the deal directly without getting an intermediary involved who charges a fortune.

It seems Carroll himself had informed him of the agent change a few months prior to the move but he claims Carroll was still under contract with him and had been tapped up by Curtis.

Andy Carroll's £35m move to Liverpool has made his legal battle with the agent Peter Harrison all the fruitier. In a fortnight both men will present their respective cases to an arbitration panel convened by the Football Association.

Harrison alleges that Carroll is in breach of his exclusive representation contract signed in March 2009. It is believed the contract was for two years, meaning it would nominally run until next month. However, a few months after signing it, Carroll informed Harrison that he wanted a change and would join Mark Curtis, who represented his friend and then captain at Newcastle United, Kevin Nolan.

Harrison's claim is that this put Carroll in breach of contract, resulting in a loss of earnings after he lost out on the agent's fee from the striker's contract renegotiation last summer. Monday's transfer complicates matters.

Intriguingly Richard Green, the lawyer who is representing Carroll in the Harrison case, also represented Carroll in his negotiation with Liverpool. If the panel finds that Carroll was indeed in breach of contract, then it may have to consider whether Green contributed to the effect of that breach by subsequently being involved in a £35m transfer.

"There isn't any conflict of interest at all," Green told Digger. "I've acted on behalf of Andy for some time and advise him on legal issues."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/feb/02/andy-carroll-legal-battle-agent

Opr

Blatter

Wasn't the agent that Liverpool got in to broker the deal seen as suspicious as well?

He wasn't a very well known agent in terms of big deals, but had significant connections with Curtis.

opr

Good blog piece which makes it all sound very dodgy.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/mar/16/liverpool-andy-carroll-newcastle-united-agent

Another article about Curtis and Allardyce/West Ham.

http://www.kumb.com/article.php?id=2991

Opr

Paully D

Some more from David Conn here, from a few years ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2007/nov/07/twentyquestionsforboltonma

When Bolton Wanderers appointed Gary Megson as their manager a fortnight ago their chairman, Phil Gartside, confirmed that they had employed Mark Curtis, assumed throughout football to be Megson's agent, to work for the club on the recruitment process. Graeme Souness, interviewed for the job, said he had felt "uneasy" that Curtis had sat in on his interview and he pulled out.

Bolton then issued a statement saying that Curtis had not, in fact, represented any of the candidates as an agent. Curtis certainly did represent Megson as his agent when Megson was West Bromwich Albion's manager, and was paid for negotiating a new contract for him. However, when Megson joined Leicester City as manager in September this year Curtis said that he had "helped Gary as a friend with the contract negotiations".

In response to a series of further questions about Bolton's long-term relationship with Curtis and the club's transfer dealings, a Bolton spokesman issued a statement saying: "Following the departure of Sammy Lee, Mark Curtis was engaged to assist in the process involved in the search for a new manager. That role has now been completed. Previously to that, he has had occasional dealings with Bolton in his role as an agent." Curtis himself did not return calls.

After Lord Stevens' Quest inquiry into alleged irregular payments in Premier League transfers the football public was promised that a new era of transparency had opened in the previously murky world of agents and deals. However, it is now clear that supporters are being told as little as ever about how clubs and agents work and how transfers are conducted. Presumably nobody outside the process would have known that Curtis was involved in Bolton's appointment of a manager if Souness had not talked publicly about it.

The FA, although it maintains that its strengthened compliance unit is vigorously investigating the issues raised by Stevens, will not comment on its continuing inquiries.

Here, then, are 20 questions for Bolton Wanderers and Mark Curtis - and the Football Association - to answer, to shine further light on an area still shrouded in mystery.

1 For how long has Mark Curtis worked for Bolton as a club, what work has he done and how much has he been he paid?

2 As Curtis has also worked as Sam Allardyce's agent, did he work on behalf of Bolton while Allardyce was the club's manager?

3 Craig Allardyce, Sam's son, worked as an agent for Curtis's company, Sports Player Management. Then in 2003, after media criticism of the apparent conflict of interest, Gartside was reported saying that Craig, while he worked for Curtis, would do no more deals with Bolton. How many deals had he done with Bolton up to that point?

4 How many deals did Craig Allardyce do with Bolton after he left Curtis's company but while his father was still the club's manager?

5 In September 2006, Panorama secretly filmed the players' agent Peter Harrison saying that he did deals at Bolton by agreeing with Sam Allardyce to pay money to Craig. The programme went on to accuse Sam Allardyce of having been "involved in corrupt transfer deals". Allardyce denied that but ultimately declined to sue the programme. Subsequently Gartside announced that his club had conducted a full internal investigation which cleared everybody working at Bolton of any wrongdoing. Why did the club decide not to publish that report?

6 Bolton are understood to have shared that report with the FA. Will the FA ever publish it?

7 When Sam Allardyce resigned as the Bolton manager in April he issued a statement explaining that he felt it was "the right moment to step down" and that "the club is in a great position to continue its upward trajectory". Gartside said that Allardyce had "given his reasons for wanting to leave the club at this time, which are private". Will a fuller explanation ever be given?

8 In its final report published in June the Stevens inquiry also cleared Gartside and everybody at Bolton - including, it clarified, Sam Allardyce - of any irregular payments. But Quest, Stevens' company, reported that it "remains concerned at the conflict of interest that it believes existed between Craig Allardyce, his father Sam Allardyce [when manager at Bolton] and the club itself". Does Gartside share those concerns?

9 What progress has the Football Association made with its further investigations into four Bolton transfers identified as "uncleared" by the Stevens inquiry?

10 After Sammy Lee left Bolton three weeks ago with the club in the relegation zone, why was Curtis brought in to help find a replacement for him?

11 When Megson was appointed, Gartside said he was "the right man" because he has "the right temperament for a battle". What role did Curtis play in that final decision?

12 Gartside said that Curtis had not represented any of the candidates, and Curtis said that another agent, Mickey Walsh, had acted for Megson. Curtis had represented Megson at West Bromwich Albion; when did that relationship end, and why?

13 Why did Curtis advise Megson only as "a friend" in the Leicester City negotiations? He is an agent, so why was the relationship not formalised and Curtis paid for his services?

14 Walsh is registered on Fifa's official list of football agents, and with the English FA, as working for a company, Premier Management Holdings, still giving its telephone number as his contact although it says he has left. That same company took over Curtis's company, Sports Player Management, in April 2002, and until August 23 2004 Curtis worked for Premier Management Holdings. Was there any overlap in Curtis's and Walsh's time at Premier Management Holdings, or is there any other connection between them?

15 Why has Curtis applied to have his current company, Direct Sports Management, struck off the Companies House register for not having traded within the past three months?

16 Curtis's previous company, Sports Player Management, was put into liquidation in April 2006 with unpaid taxes dating back to the year ended February 2002. The official receiver said a report was being compiled into Curtis's running of the company. Has that report been completed?

17 What progress has the FA compliance unit made with its investigation into the signing by West Brom of the Danish defender Martin Albrechtsen in June 2004? West Brom themselves reported their "serious concerns" to the FA, alleging that Curtis, who was acting for the club while Megson was the manager, inflated the fee they were to pay FC Copenhagen. Curtis has dismissed that as "nonsense".

18 Is Curtis acting in a similar capacity on behalf of any other football club as he has for Bolton Wanderers over the years?

19 Which managers does Curtis represent?

20 Which managers does Curtis advise as "a friend"?

aidan24326

He just comes across as bitter from what I can see.

Vurnon San Benito

He's been Tweeting about exposing them for yonks - apparently now he has got the go-ahead from his legal advisors to dish the dirt.

Will be very interesting to see what happens.

Dempsey

Comolli quits Liverpool for "family reasons". This is beginning to rightly stink!

redzerdrog

Dempsey wrote: »

Comolli quits Liverpool for "family reasons". This is beginning to rightly stink!

am i missing something here?

Owen_S

Is that a tin-foil hat he's wearing?

Helix

redzerdrog wrote: »

am i missing something here?

the strangeness of the way the carroll deal was conducted, through curtis who wasnt his agent, i assume

Samich

Yeah Comolli is dodge in this too is the line that's being seen about.

Samich

From wiki about Comolli "He stated that he left due to family reasons but rumours have circulated that he may have been sacked as a result of failings in the transfer market."

Cardinal Richelieu

Blatter wrote: »

Are Bolton actually over £100 million in debt?

Yes, its looking like they will be New Rangers even with a relegation parachute payment. Despite record income the 20 top tier clubs lost a staggering £2.1bn 2010-11 season, with just four of them turning a profit. The total debt owed now amounts to £2.5bn, a fall of £0.6bn largely due to the wiping out of Liverpool's leverage debt. Over half of this debt, £1.3bn, is owed by Chelsea and Manchester United. UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations come into full effect in 2014 and clubs will then be required to balance their books without recourse to large cash injections from their owners if they are to be allowed to compete in Europe. So Chelsea is screwed unless he can get rid of Platini who championed the Financial Fair Play Regs or move Chelsea to a bigger stadium but then again Chelsea struggle to fill there existing stadium at times. Fulham for its size is £190 million in the red so if sugar daddy Al Fahid walks away they are truely screwed but they do have a nice piece of property beside the Thames.

May 2011 Debt Figures
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/may/19/football-club-accounts-debt

Zebra3

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Presumably Harrison has been a model agent and done everything by the book?

Maybe, maybe not.

Sometimes it takes a whistleblower on the inside to speak out about rampant corruption.

Jesus Wept

My heart bleeds for this guy, one leech complaining that some other leeches broke the leeching rules.

Get rid of all these leeches or at least regulate the bollox out of them and make it transparent and fair.

Helix

Andy Carroll wrote: »

My heart bleeds for this guy, one leech complaining that some other leeches broke the leeching rules.

Get rid of all these leeches or at least regulate the bollox out of them and make it transparent and fair.

if it cleans the game up than we should be thankful for him

Paully D

He's off again tonight. Interesting stuff:

https://twitter.com/#!/agentH058

kryogen

Tanking along tonight alright

kryogen

Did find this amusing

nufc ‏@nufc2503

@agentH058 to be fair to Sam it must cost him millions to feed himself he needs backhanders

Jimmy Iovine

He really doesn't like Mark Curtis and Big Sam.

Gbear

I find it most astonishing that he can say things which I would assume to be libelous if untrue yet none of the targets are taking any court action.

There's probably corruption in every single industry in every single country. That there should be some in football is hardly surprising but that nobody attempts to silence this guy if he's lying or if he's not, that they're so secure in their positions that the truth being outed does no harm to them, is.

UnitedIrishman

Thing is, he'd probably prefer if they did take legal action. Having the case plastered all over the papers and a bigger soapbox to stand on would be far better than a blog and twitter.

That said, if true, I hope it outs some of those responsible.

Paully D

He's off again tonight, speaking about Allardyce and Carroll's agent with regards to Carroll's proposed move to West Ham:

https://twitter.com/agenth058

redzerdrog

who is fat sams, manager mate who is a geordie?

tvercetti

redzerdrog wrote: »

who is fat sams, manager mate who is a geordie?

His followers suspect its Steve Bruce

Samich

Could well be something in the Carroll thing, sure wasn't it dodgy when he moved to Liverpool with Comolli apparantly.

kryogen

I do get a great laugh off him I must admit