Harry Redknapp accused of opening an offshore account to avoid tax

Harry Redknapp, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, was accused of opening an offshore bank account in Monaco to take a "bung" from Milan Mandaric, the former Portsmouth chairman, Southwark crown court heard yesterday. On the opening day of the pair's trial on charges of tax evasion, the prosecution alleged that Redknapp, who was Portsmouth's manager at the time of the transfer of Peter Crouch to Aston Villa in 2002, opened the account in the name of Rosie47, which apparently referred to the name of his dog and the year of his birth. Redknapp was accused of paying two untaxed payments from Mandaric of £189,500 into the account shortly after Crouch's transfer. John Black QC, prosecuting for the Crown, said: "These payments were a bung or offshore bonus that the parties must have known" they would not be paying tax on. The first charge alleges that between 1 April 2002 and 28 November 2007 Mandaric paid $145,000 (£93,100) into the Rosie47 account to avoid paying tax and national insurance. The second alleges that $150,000 was paid by Mandaric into the same account between 1 May 2004 and 28 November 2007. Under the terms of Redknapp's employment by Portsmouth, the prosecution said that he received 10% of the net profit of any player transfers while working as director of football then 5% after he had become manager. Crouch had been bought from Queens Park Rangers in 2001 for £1.25m but spent just nine months at Portsmouth before being sold to Villa for £4.5m, a few days after Redknapp switched jobs from director of football to manager. Black said of Redknapp: "Talented and popular he might have been, the Crown [says] he was nevertheless a hard-headed businessman, with a financial acumen and pecuniary sense of his influence to his employers," adding that: "He had a highly lucrative employment contract." The case continues.