Fraud police 'looking for missing 1m in Faye deal to Pompey'

A 1m discrepancy between the French club Auxerre's account of how much money they received from Portsmouth for the transfer of Amdy Faye in 2003 and Portsmouth's own account kick-started the inquiry that led to the arrests on Wednesday of five men, The Independent can reveal. According to a source, Auxerre told French fraud investigators they received 1m less than the 1.5m Portsmouth are said to have paid.

The City of London Police arrested Harry Redknapp, Milan Mandaric, Peter Storrie, Willie McKay and Faye on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting. All five arrests were specifically related to the Faye deal, and while CLP investigators remain open-minded about bringing charges, they are effectively looking for a missing 1m.