Compliance failure highlighted in report

Corruption inquiry: The 39 transfer deals identified by Lord Stevens' inquiry as requiring further investigation had previously been signed off by the Football Association.

The FA moved last week to bolster its under-resourced compliance unit, which currently has only three investigators working on all on and off-field disciplinary matters.

The FA has declared its intention to beef up its compliance team in an apparent admission that the burden on those investigators has proved too much. The 362 transfers considered by Lord Stevens in the 24-month period of the bungs inquiry all came from the Premiership, each requiring up to six different official documents to be processed, leading Stevens to make a veiled criticism of existing FA procedure.

"For compliance I would like to emphasise that prevention is better than cure," said Stevens. "It really is important that we have within football the structure that we can have confidence in to stop the allegations of the past.

"You must have a very experienced team to investigate them. I welcome the fact that they (will expand) the enforcement unit at the FA but this is all about having the right people there and the number of people, and it is also about, dare I say it, the right information and the right contacts."

Stevens will make a variety of recommendations in his final report about how compliance should be handled. FA executives will welcome that, having been eager to tighten regulations only to be thwarted by elements of their board. Even in the face of that internal opposition, the FA did manage to introduce supplementary agents' regulations in January in its role as the regulator of English licensed agents' activities on behalf of the world governing body, Fifa.

The repercussions for any irregularities identified in their conduct will be under FA jurisdiction, with Stevens intent on forwarding information to Soho Square. Should managers, clubs or club officials be found guilty of wrongdoing - the search for which, as the Premier League chief executive, Richard Scudamore, yesterday emphasised, is the primary function of the inquiry - they will be dealt with under Premier League rules.