Send bung-takers to jail - Top agent

Top agent Athole Still has claimed football's bung-takers should be sent to jail amid fears the Lord Stevens inquiry will expose only a handful of scapegoats.

Still, who represents former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, has called for those responsible for corrupt dealings within the game to be charged with criminal offences.

Commenting at the end of a week which saw former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens handed another two months to further investigate transfer deals, Still told BBC Radio Five Live's Sportsweek show: "We use this word 'bung' as kind of a friendly word. But if a bung is a bribe, a bribe is illegal."

He added: "If you are working for a company - and many of the football clubs now are plcs - and you take a bribe, you are committing fraud, you are committing embezzlement often, and therefore you should go to prison."

Lord Stevens delivered his interim findings and requested an extended period to look into 39 of the 362 deals which came under his investigation. His initial findings were disclosed as the fall-out from Panorama's undercover investigation continued to cast a shadow over the game.

However, despite ongoing inquiries by both the Football Association and the Premier League, both Still and fellow agent Jon Smith believe the repercussions will not be far-reaching.

Smith said: "I think it (the report) will probably name two or three individuals with question marks. I do not think it will say, 'That happened on such and such a date and that money went into such and such a bank account'.

"But what I do think it will say is, 'Two or three individuals performed that transaction, that transaction we could not follow. Certain monies went off in certain directions that we cannot account for and therefore, these people are questionable and so are these practices'.

"It could be a group of people. I believe it will come from the overseas agent links. It is obvious Lord Stevens wanted more than another two months to investigate the 39 deals he mentioned, and the Premiership chairmen did not want to give it to him.

"That is the problem you get when the people you are investigating are paying for the investigation. I think there will be a couple of scapegoats, I think there will be a couple of names thrown out to the media to make it look like the Premier League is cleaning up the game, but essentially, that will be it."