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DAY 1 (a recap for those that missed it)
THE JURY: Judge Anthony Leonard QC warned jurors they should declare any prejudices they hold for or against any of the clubs that Mr Redknapp or Mr Mandaric have worked for.
Judge Leonard told the pool of potential jurors: “This case concerns two allegations of tax evasion.The defendants are two well known personalities in the world of football.
“Milan Mandaric was, at the relevant time, the chairman of Portsmouth City Football Club and has gone on to other English football clubs.
“Harry Redknapp was the manager of Portsmouth City Football Club at the relevant time and he too has gone on to manage other teams.
“Let me make it clear, this case is about tax fraud, not football – but it is tax fraud that is alleged to have taken place within the football world.
“You will take an oath or affirmation to reach true verdicts according to the evidence. You must leave all prejudice and favour behind and try this case solely on the evidence.
“Football, for some, can be of such importance that it almost overwhelms every other aspect of their lives. It can instil in people very strong prejudice in favour of and against certain teams, managers and players.
“If you hold allegiances towards either the clubs that these two defendants have been involved with or are presently involved with – or for or against them as individuals – that might prevent you from discharging your proper duty as a juror, then you must tell me.”
THE BUSINESS: Harry Redknapp was acknowledged in court as a popular and talented football manager – but also a “hard-headed businessman”.
Prosecutor John Black QC said: “Even back in the early 2000s, it was obvious that Mr Redknapp was more than a common or garden football manager.
“He was unusually talented. The Crown says that notwithstanding that, he was a hard-headed businessman with financial acumen and a very keen sense of his pecuniary advantage to his employer.”
Mr Black said that on top of his wages while at the helm at Portsmouth, Redknapp received bonuses running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
It was alleged that when he steered the south coast club to the Premier League, his performance-related bonus went up from £300,000 to £400,000 and later even higher to £600,000.
Mr Black said that of “particular significance” was a 10% bonus Redknapp received on the net profit of any player he sold on to another club.
Multi-million pound deals would have netted Redknapp hundreds of thousands of pounds, the prosecutor said.
But it was when former chief executive Peter Storrie cut his bonus to 5% that he decided to open the offshore HSBC account, the court was told.
The Case Opens ...
Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp set up a secret bank account in Monaco to hide £200,000 in dodgy transfer bungs, a court has heard.
Redknapp allegedly so he could receive bonus payments and conceal them from the taxman while he was manager at Portsmouth.
The 64-year-old, now boss at Spurs and widely tipped to be the next England manager, is said to have set up the offshore HSBC account with the approval of Portsmouth’s former chairman Milan Mandaric, 73.
And he gave it the name of one of his pet bulldogs, Rosie, it is claimed.
Prosecutor John Black, QC, said: “It was not opened in the name of Mr Redknapp but Rosie47.”
He explained: “It appears to be a combination of the name of his dog and the year of his birth.”
Mr Black added: “It is significant that the bank account opened by Mr Redknapp in order to receive money from Mr Mandaric was located in an offshore tax haven with a long-standing tradition of banking secrecy.”
He claimed the account was intended to “obscure the money trail”.
Redknapp’s son Jamie, the former Liverpool and England midfielder turned top TV pundit, sat just feet from the dock in a specially reserved seat at Southwark crown court in London as the case against his father was outlined.
Mr Black said: “The counts on the indictment relate to two substantial payments made by Mr Mandaric to a bank account set up by Mr Redknapp offshore in Monaco.
“The Crown says the money transfers were deliberately and dishonestly paid by Mr Mandaric and were deliberately and dishonestly received by Mr Redknapp with the intention of concealing them from the UK tax authorities. Both these defendants are guilty of cheating the taxman.”
He added: “You will hear later of many and various explanations for these payments in what the Crown will suggest were increasingly unrealistic attempts to avoid the obvious conclusion that they were a bung or off-the-record bonus which the parties had absolutely no intention of declaring for tax and never did.”
Mr Black said Redknapp joined Portsmouth from West Ham and, in 2002-03, won them promotion to the Premier League.
He added: “As a man charged with bringing football success to Portsmouth, it goes without saying that he was no ordinary employee.
“He has, as you will readily appreciate, got widespread popularity as a talented and successful football manager and he is currently enjoying what could be described as footballing success as manager of Tottenham Hotspur.
“He was, in short, unusually talented. Talented and popular he may undoubtedly be but the Crown says he was nevertheless a hard-headed businessman with a business acumen.”
The court heard that Redknapp was initially entitled to a 10% bonus of any net profit he made Portsmouth by selling players.
The jury of eight men and four women was told he made the club a £2.3million profit in March 2002 by selling Peter Crouch to Aston Villa for £4.5m.
But Mr Black said that the then chief executive Peter Storrie had recently cut the bonus to 5%.
That meant Redknapp only got £115,000 instead of the £230,000 he would previously have been entitled to under the previous arrangement.
Mr Black said: “What seems clear from the contemporaneous records is that Mr Mandaric and Mr Redknapp arranged that, in addition to being paid by the club, any sums falling due to him under the new clause, he (Redknapp) would receive sums off-record from the chairman directly and such off-record sums would remain hidden from the UK tax authorities.”
Mr Black added: “The 5% was entered into the club’s accounts and Mr Redknapp’s wage slips and National Insurance and Income Tax contributions were declared.”
But he said the manager “did not wait long before taking steps to receive what he would say was his due for an off-record payment”.
Mr Black said Redknapp flew to Monaco four days after he received the 5% club bonus “for the specific purpose of opening a secret account into which the off-record payments could be received”.
The jury was told that Croatian-born Mandaric, now chairman of Sheffield Wednesday, made a payment of $145,000 from his US bank account in June 2002, followed by a further payment of $150,000 in April 2004.
Mr Black said that given the fluctuations in the exchange rate, both sums were roughly equivalent to £100,000.
The court heard that Redknapp authorised the payment from the Rosie47 account of $100,000 to First Star International Ltd, after receiving the first alleged bung.
Mr Black said that First Star International was based in Miami and was owned by Mandaric.
The court heard that Redknapp’s tax affairs first came under investigation in April 2004, when the Premier League set up an independent inquiry called Quest under the chairmanship of former Scotland Yard commissioner Lord Stevens to investigate possible tax irregularities in the game.
The probe focused on a payment of £300,000 that Redknapp’s former club West Ham had paid him following the £18million transfer of England star Rio Ferdinand to Leeds United.
Redknapp, of Poole, Dorset, and Mandaric, of Oadby, Leics, deny two charges of tax evasion with intent to defraud Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
DAY 2 (LIVE UPATES)
Prosecutors accusing Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp of taking bungs in an offshore tax dodge will today call their first witnesses.
Redknapp banked transfer bonuses worth £189,000 in a Monaco account named after his pet dog, Rosie, jurors heard.
One of the payments during his time at Portsmouth was over the £3 million profit the club made on the sale of England star Peter Crouch, prosecutors claim.
Prosecutor John Black QC will complete his opening statement to the jury before calling the first witnesses at Southwark Crown Court.
Mandaric arrives at court this morning...
followed 5 minutes later by Arry (and Jamie)
10.47: from the Press Association
Redknapp failed to declare his offshore bank account for six years after "feigning" ignorance during a high profile inquiry into football bungs, the court was told this morning.
He previously only mentioned the Monaco account as he was quizzed during the Premier League-led investigation, jurors were told.
John Black QC, prosecuting, said Redknapp "was feigning almost complete ignorance of its existence" as the Quest inquiry under former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens took place in 2006.
Mr Black asked jurors to consider whether "is it the case that Mr Redknapp could be unaware of the bank account" when he had flown out to Monaco just a couple of years earlier to set it up in the name of his dog, Rosie.
Despite two separate inquiries into his finances - the first launched in the wake of his receipt of a £300,000 "gift" after Rio Ferdinand signed for Leeds United from West Ham - Redknapp only registered the account to tax inspectors after his arrest in 2008.
Mr Black told Southwark Crown Court: "The existence of the bank account was not registered to Revenue and Customs for a period of six years, two months... after Mr Redknapp was first arrested and questioned in the course of this investigation."
10.59: from the Press Association
Tax inspectors were informed of the bank account "only within the context to declare a small amount of credit interest" in 2008, Mr Black said.
Mr Black showed the jury of eight men and four women newspaper cuttings from 2003, which detailed Redknapp had received a £300,000 gift for the £18 million transfer of Ferdinand to Leeds United.
Redknapp - who had managed West Ham before joining Portsmouth - was said to have described the cash he received as a "personal present".
Mr Black said the fact Redknapp paid tax on the gift was proof he knew future payments would be tax liable.
The Tottenham Hotspur manager is accused of banking transfer bonuses worth £189,000 during his time managing Portsmouth.
One of the payments was said to have been sparked by the £3 million profit the South Coast club made on the sale of England star Peter Crouch.
11.27: from the Press Association
Mr Black urged jurors to consider "had Mr Redknapp really forgotten that he had flown to Monaco to set up the account?"
He showed the panel a string of letters between lawyers in the wake of Redknapp's arrest.
The first mention of the offshore account came when Mandaric was asked by the Quest inquiry to provide details of payments to Redknapp, Mr Black said.
"It's clear that it was only at this time that Mr Redknapp brought to the attention the existence of the Monaco bank account, feigning almost total ignorance of its existence, its operation and its contents," he added.
11.53am via Twitter:
@MartinLipton: Judge has ordered no Tweeting of court proceedings in Redknapp trial
