Saturday 1 October 2016 00:15, UK
Pino Pagliara, one of the agents at the centre of the recent corruption allegations, has told Sky Sports that he lied when he claimed that up to eight former and current Premier League managers had taken bribes in relation to player transfers.
Pagliara was one of three agents filmed as part of the Daily Telegraph's undercover sting operation, which has led to Sam Allardyce's departure as England manager.
The unlicensed Italian agent, who was banned from football for five years for match-fixing, had told the undercover reporters that he knew of a number of top flight managers who had accepted bribes.
However, Pagliara has since backtracked on those claims and insists he lied in order to impress the reporters, who were posing as businessmen from Asia.
"I didn't talk about these managers, they [the undercover reporters] mentioned the names and I said 'yes, everyone takes a bung' - that's what I said," Pagliara told Sky Sports.
"Because that's what they wanted me to say. Absolutely [I lied] - right through my teeth. They also tried incriminating the people that I introduced them to in terms of club owners by proposing a third party ownership which is totally illegal.
"What they were hoping was, because I was damaged goods from something that I did 15 years ago, that everybody I would be introducing them to would be, by association, a damaged article."
Watch Pino Pagliara's interview with Sky Sports News by clicking on the video at the top of the page.
