Premier League

Police investigation nothing to do with me - Redknapp

14:09 GMT, Thu 29 Nov 2007
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LONDON, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp insisted on Thursday that he had done nothing wrong despite being arrested by police investigating corruption in football.

Redknapp was one of five people, including former Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandaric and current chief executive Peter Storrie, who were questioned by police on Wednesday.

"This has got absolutely nothing to do with me," Redknapp, formerly a coach at West Ham United and Southampton, told a news conference at Portsmouth's training ground.

"It was a bitter disappointment to me and my family and we were deeply hurt by the whole situation...why I couldn't have got a phone call and just popped down the police station for a chat I really doen't know.

"Why it's in the public domain and made into such a big issue when I wasn't even involved in it I find difficult to understand."

Redknapp said he had been to Germany to watch Stuttgart play Rangers in the Champions League and became aware of the situation after he got "hysterical" phone messages from his wife when he arrived back in Britain on Wednesday.

"I'm particularly disappointed that the police should come knocking on my door at six o'clock in the morning with photogarphers from a well-known newspaper," he said.

"My wife was petrified. They searched my house. If you can tell me that's the way to treat anybody then it's not the society I was bought up in and I'm bitterly disapopinted."

Redknapp, who confirmed that police had taken a computer, said he was questioned at Chichester Police station about a football agent.

"The crux of it was that an agent had recived a fee and allegedly paid some of it to a player...that was the top and bottom of the investigation as far as I was concerned, there was nothing else for me to talk about," said Redknapp.

"I was wondering what I was doing there. I'm not involved in who gets agents fees and who doesn't."

City of London police said on Wednesady they had arrested five men on "suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting" as part of an ongoing investigation into football corruption.

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