The Italian media have taken an opportunity to speak about Pino Pagliara, the agent involved with The Telegraph’s investigation into wrongdoing in football, and who was involved in setting up the meeting with Leeds United owner Massimo Cellino.
The Daily Telegraph this week disclosed the Leeds United chief held a meeting with a businessman, alleging he offered to sell 20% of the club as part of a way around third party ownership deals.
Calciomercarto have reported on Pagliara’s involvement in setting up the meeting between Cellino and the businessman.
However, Calciomercato have highlighted Pagliara’s past record following a five-year ban for his part in the Genoa-Venzia match fixing scandal in 2005.
Pagliara was involved in the deals that took Gianfranco Zola and Fabrizio Ravanelli to England, but his reputation was trashed after his role in trying to help Genoa get promotion to Serie A.
In 2005 Genoa beat Venezia 3-2, in a result vital to promotion and not so important to Venezia who were already relegated, and an investigation was opened on the circumstances of the result. Subsequently Genoa were relegated to Lega Pro after being found guilty of match-fixing, leading to a number of convictions, including that of Pagliara.
After the claims relating to Cellino, Leeds United released a statement giving their side of the story, and saying The Telegraph had made the story into something it never was:
‘The Club has reviewed the supposed “evidence” that the Daily Telegraph have published tonight. At no time in this video clip has Mr Cellino suggested getting around the FA’s rules on third-party ownership of players.
In complete contrast to what has been suggested, Mr Cellino has made a perfectly proper suggestion which is entirely consistent with the FA’s regulations, as the only parties entitled to take benefit from ownership of a player is the Club itself.
If a company commits money to a Club by way of investment, taking on the potential for profit but also the risk for loss, then that is a normal, every-day corporate process.
This is plainly not a suggestion as to how to circumvent the rules, but rather, an accurate albeit concise explanation of how to operate within the confines of the rules and effectively become “the Club”.’
The Telegraph claims generally aren’t being given quite so much weight in Italy, given that Pagliara is far more well known, and it would be considered odd to trust his word in any investigation related to wrongdoing in football.
Such was Pagliara’s reputation in Italy after the match-fixing scandal (and that was just one incident of many), he left the country and moved to Manchester.
Pagliara has history with Leeds United, and it’s not just related to the club previously distancing themselves from him when Cellino was taking over.
Back in October 2007, Peter Ridsdale told the English media that Pagliara had tried to extract an unmerited payment from the Robbie Keane to Tottenham deal, which had happened in 2002.
Risdale was in Italy working on another deal and Pagliara cornered him: “Just as I was about to leave, Pino asked to see me outside in the corridor.
“He asked me if it were true we were going to sell Robbie Keane to Spurs for £7m and I confirmed we hoped to finalise the deal in 24 hours.
“That’s when Pino asked if I’d be willing for him to submit an invoice for ‘agent services’.
“I asked ‘Why would you submit an invoice? The negotiations were nothing to do with you!
“Pino said ‘But Peter, if I bill you for £600,000, we split the commission 50-50. You’re the chairman, no one needs to know I wasn’t involved.
“I said ‘Pino, wrong man. I’ve never taken a bung and I’m now going to report this to my board’.”
Pagliara is one of the most notorious agents in the history of the game, despite not being widely known by the general public.
That makes it difficult to understand why The Telegraph have placed emphasis on his word, and also difficult to understand how people who work in football entertained the idea of even speaking to him about business within the game.
