Agent tried to cream off pounds 125,000 in transfer deal at Venables club

A FIFA-REGISTERED football agent attempted to cream off pounds 125,000 from a transfer deal involving a club controlled by the former England coach Terry Venables.

Tom Lawrence asked the Swedish club Elfsborg to accept pounds 200,000 from Portsmouth FC for the striker Mathias Svensson - then told the Swedes to send pounds 125,000 back to his solicitor in England.

The Swedish board was expecting to receive only pounds 75,000 for the player, so it tipped off Portsmouth officials, who cut Mr Lawrence out of the deal and paid the lower asking price.

Mr Lawrence's solicitor, Stephen Carter, confirmed details of the arrangement to The Independent last night, saying it was an attempt by his client to make as much money as possible.

The transfer took place in December 1996 while Mr Venables was chairman of Portsmouth and two months before he bought the struggling club for just pounds 1. Svensson had been found by the Portsmouth scout, Ted Buxton, so Kjell Hallen, the Elfsborg deputy chairman, was reluctant to deal with an outside agent.

"It was a curious situation," said Mr Hallen. "We had more than one agent claiming to be involved, but one, Strata Sports [Mr Lawrence's company], told us we would be receiving pounds 200,000 and we were to send pounds 125,000 back to England. There were a lot of letters and faxes and promises at the time and I was very upset and angry."

On 2 December, Mr Hallen, who was then deputy chairman, and his chairman, Ake Larsson, wrote to Paul Weld, the Portsmouth club secretary, saying: "It is [sic] too much people involved in this transfer. As we told you Friday, our amount is pounds 75,000 once [and] for all."

Three days later, apparently under pressure from Mr Lawrence, Elfsborg wrote: "We have no agreement with all these agents. The only thing we have promised is if we get pounds 200,000 from you we keep pounds 75,000 and sent the rest to Carter & Co [the Strata solicitors]. These agents cannot demand payment from us if we only get pounds 75,000 from you - we have checked this with our union and our lawyer."

This is not the first time that Mr Lawrence and Strata Sports Marketing have been involved in a controversial transfer deal. Two weeks ago, The Independent revealed that Crystal Palace, now managed by Mr Venables, had agreed to pay pounds 1.35m for two Chinese players, pounds 400,000 more than the Chinese authorities were expecting to receive.

Mr Lawrence was involved in that deal. So was Mr Buxton, who discovered Svensson; he found the Chinese players, Fan Zhiyi and Sun Jihai. The two sides are now reconciled, with the Chinese due to receive the higher amount.

After being cut out of the Svensson deal, Mr Lawrence submitted a bill for pounds 58,750 for his services in "finding" the player. When the club refused to pay, he submitted three invoices for scouting charges which, added together, amounted to pounds 58,750. Several months later, the club reached a final settlement of pounds 20,000 for all his outstanding claims.

Asked why an attempt was made by Mr Lawrence to route pounds 125,000 back to England, Mr Carter, his solicitor, said: "I think the simple explanation is that the 10 per cent figure put on agents' fees is a misnomer - it varies from transaction to transaction. It is a business where there are a tremendous amount of abortives ... and I think this was an attempt to derive as much from the transaction as possible."

He said the proceeds were to have been split between Mr Lawrence and a Swedish-based Yugoslav agent who was not registered with Fifa, world football's governing body.

"It strikes me as a fairly standard business arrangement except it took place against the messy background that is football."

Mr Lawrence declined to comment.