noelyf
VIP Member
Thursday July 21 2011
Bryan Robson has confirmed he is taking legal advice over the Channel 4 Dispatches programme in which he is alleged to have offered Thailand businessmen advice about getting around strict rules on football ownership.
The Football Association is monitoring footage before deciding whether to take any action against Robson, and his position as a Manchester United ambassador has been called into question.
On camera, Robson claims: "I disagree with people when they say football is a sport.
"Football lost its sporting thing when the money started coming in. Football's a business."
Robson was also acting as an adviser to London Nominees Football Fund -- a group that invests in 'football clubs, players, franchises, merchandising and sponsorship'.
Fee
London Nominees was offering to broker the purchase of a club in exchange for a 20pc stake and a five-percent management fee.
Robson met what turned out to be a team of undercover reporters alongside his then boss, Joe Sim, chief adviser to the Thailand FA and who is also involved with London Nominees.
Now Robson has had his say and is clearly intent on defending himself.
"I am aware of (but have not yet seen) the Channel 4 production -- Dispatches: How to Buy a Football Club," said the former England captain. "I am an adviser to the London Nominees Football Fund and was engaged to provide advice and assistance on the football side of investments only.
"The journalists were repeatedly told by me and others that owning multiple clubs was a breach of the rules.
"I am appalled to learn that footage has been edited to suggest that I was involved in an attempt to try and breach these rules -- which is something I would not do. This entire episode is another example of some representatives of the media behaving in a totally unacceptable way in which they obtain and then present information.
"As a result of this, I am taking legal advice."