Redknapp 'utterly disorganised'

FAR FROM being a “hard-headed businessman” with a knack for turning profits, Harry Redknapp has made a series of disastrous investments and is so “completely and utterly disorganised” that his life is run by his accountant, a court has heard.

Southwark crown court in London was played a tape of an interview with City of London police in which the Tottenham Hotspur manager said he had no idea how to look after money.

“My accountant runs my life,” he said. “My wage slips go straight to him.”

Redknapp described himself as “the most disorganised person in the world”, said he was unable to get to grips with technology and was insecure about his writing abilities. “I write like a two-year-old,” he told police. “I cant spell.” He said: “I am completely and utterly disorganised. I am not going to fiddle taxes. I pay my accountant a fortune to look after me.”

One example of his financial ineptitude, he told police, was his failure to notice that the Sun had not paid him for his column for 18 months.

Redknapp and the former Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandaric are accused of cheating the public finance by avoiding paying tax and national insurance on earnings of £189,000 (€225,455), which were deposited in an offshore account opened by Redknapp in Monaco. They deny the charges.

The court heard Redknapp was involved in a “very unsuccessful” takeover bid for Oxford United which lost him £250,000 (€298,221). His personal banker, HSBC executive Alan Hills, told the court he had no idea what became of the money Redknapp put into the venture.

Redknapps barrister, John Kelsey-Fry QC, asked Hills: “Do you remember an occasion when he was persuaded to loan, at very short notice, £250,000 to buy Oxford United and that money just disappeared into the mist?” Hills replied: “I have never seen it, yes.”

The banker added that although Redknapp had a good grasp of the property market, his investment sense was weak. Kelsey-Fry went further, saying his client had previously embarked on “disastrous” investments in which he risked being liable for 100 per cent of the losses but eligible for only 50 per cent of the profits.

Asked whether he agreed that some of his Redknapp’s investments had been disastrous, Hills said: “With regard to the (Oxford United) shares – it is fair to say they were very unsuccessful.”

On the Monaco account, although the initial deposit of $145,000 (€92,900) was made into Redknapp’s account in 2002, Hills told the court he had no knowledge whatsoever of the account’s existence until Redknapp told him about it at the beginning of 2008.

Hills said he would have expected to have been informed about it as it was usual for bankers to get a full list of assets and liabilities from their clients. Furthermore, he added, the account in question was also held at HSBC – albeit in Monaco.

Redknapp also told officers of a feud with Mandaric over a bonus he was due for the sale of Peter Crouch from Portsmouth to Aston Villa. “I was getting bigger than him at the football club and (Mandaric) didn’t like it really,” he said.

When Crouch was sold on for a £3 million (€3.6m) profit, Redknapp said he was due 10 per cent. He was told, however, he would only get five per cent, but that Mandaric would square things by paying money into an offshore account. Redknapp said he then told Mandaric: “I don’t want to end up with a tax bill.”

The defendant said he had been told by Mandaric there was no tax “on so many occasions”, and that he had come to assume that the Monaco account – about which he could remember next to nothing – was “dead”.

He said: “I didn’t even know what bank it was I walked into, and neither did my wife.”

The case continues.