Caborn: Inquiry needs Panorama help

Sports minister Richard Caborn has called for BBC's Panorama programme makers to hand over any evidence of illegal payments made to Bolton boss Sam Allardyce and other Barclays Premiership managers to Lord Stevens' bung inquiry.

Caborn said the allegations made by Panorama damaged the integrity of football. The programme, titled 'Undercover: Football's Dirty Secrets', alleged Allardyce and his son Craig, a football agent, received illegal payments and also made accusations of wrongdoing by several other figures in the game.

The minister told PA Sport: "The integrity of sport needs to be upheld and there are proper rules for managers and agents. These allegations damage the integrity of football and need to be looked at properly. The programme alleged they had names of 18 managers who had received illegal payments, and I think they should give all their findings over to the Lord Stevens inquiry."

He added: "This reinforces what I have been trying to do to bring in greater regulation into football through the European Football Review."

The Football Association have said will investigate any evidence of alleged wrongdoing provided to them by Panorama.

An FA spokesman said: "We have watched the programme with great interest and have asked the BBC if they will share the findings from their investigation with us.

"If we have evidence of possible breaches of rules and regulations, we will of course investigate that."

The Premier League have already instigated an inquiry into illegal payments in the game and Stevens is due to reveal his findings on October 2. Stevens, a former Metropolitan Police commissioner, has been auditing all 362 transfers conducted by 26 clubs between January 1 2004, and January 31 2006.

The Premier League have asked for the BBC to make their evidence available to the Stevens inquiry.

A statement said: "The Premier League takes all allegations of this nature seriously, which is why we launched an inquiry into alleged irregular payments in transfers back in January of this year. As we have made clear any evidence from any source is welcomed. Indeed when the BBC initially approached us regarding Panorama's findings we requested they be submitted to Lord Stevens for investigation."