Redknapp hits out at 'scandalous' allegations

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp insists the two years of tax allegations surrounding him are "smoke without a fire".

The 62-year-old has revealed how the strain of early morning police raids and rumours have taken their toll on him and his family. Redknapp is still under investigation along with Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie and former Pompey chairman Milan Mandaric, after they were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting in November 2007. The three men deny any wrongdoing.

Redknapp said: "I have had to work under that pressure of the allegations - and it has been difficult. It's not been easy, especially when you know you haven't done anything wrong."

He added: "Sometimes there can be smoke without a fire - and for sure this is one of the occasions. I have nothing to hide.

"Every week I'm hearing the same rumours everybody else is - that this is going to happen, or that's going to happen.

"It's been doing my head in for months and months now. If they did charge me...I know I've done nothing wrong and there's only one winner."

The former West Ham and Southampton manager has also revealed that the stress of the situation has affected the health of his wife.

He added in the Daily Mirror: "What's happened and the way things have happened, knocking on my door at 6am when they knew I was out of the country, has made my wife (Sandra) very, very ill.

"That's the worst of it. That's how scandalous this is.

"The problem is, the more we talk about it, the more people will think there's something in it. I'm just blocking it out of my mind and getting on with the job I'm doing at Tottenham."