"?Unlicensed agent Pino Pagliara has claimed that he was lying when he told undercover reporters about 'bent' Premier League managers taking bribes, hoping that it would impress fake 'businessmen' and land him a lucrative salary as an advisor.
As many as eight former and current managers are potentially implicated by what Pagliara and two other agents unwittingly told journalists working on the Daily Telegraph's ongoing investigation into corruption in football, which has already separately seen Sam Allardyce lose his job as England manager.
Football agent who claimed a group of current or former Premier League managers had taken 'bungs' tells @ITVNews he made it up pic.twitter.com/w0z92n7878
However, Pagliara has now backtracked, telling news outlets that what he said was "made up".
The Italian explained to ITV News that he simply told the would-be investors "what they wanted to hear" after it became clear they were looking to get a manager on side.
"They believed that the only guaranteed and assured way of being able to do a transfer of a player was if they had a manager in their pocket," he said.
"I felt it was probably easier to say, 'okay, whatever you say, we'll bung them'."
Agent at the centre of football's corruption scandal says he lied about Premier League managers taking bribeshttps://t.co/iU4yIQcUb4 pic.twitter.com/z0irwiqMcE
Pagliara had agreed a £400,000 salary and a £60,000 expense account to work with them.
"At 61 years old you don't get offers like that," he added.
"I allowed them to believe that the managers I was speaking to would not drop the money on the floor if I gave it to them," Pagliara further told the BBC in another interview.
The identities of the eight managers that Pagliara and two other agents named have not as yet been disclosed by the Telegraph and it remains to be seen what impact Pagliara's latest claims will have.
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