Neil Warnock ‘made players pay him for a place in the team’, MPs are told

Cardiff City manager Neil Warnock has been accused of making players pay him to get a place in the team, MPs have heard.

One of Warnock's former players made the allegations that he gave players "extra wages and appearance bonus to make sure they pay him to get in the team or on the bench". The claims were made by Crystal Palace player Jason Puncheon, who played under Warnock for the Eagles in 2014 as well as spending a loan spell at Warnock's QPR in 2011, in a series of deleted tweets which saw the player landed with a £15,000 FA fine. But the claims were brought up again in Parliament by Damian Collins, acting chairman of the parliamentary culture, media and sport committee, during a hearing into the football corruption investigation by the Daily Telegraph. Warnock has issued a statement calling the claims "completely and utterly false". The FA's chairman Greg Clarke was asked by Mr Collins why Puncheon was not contacted about the comments he had made about the 67-year-old manager, according to the Telegraph. Mr Collins quoted Puncheon's tweets, which were posted by the player in response to criticism from his then-manager, saying: "What I won't accept is an opinion from a man who's crooked and ruining the game - Neil Warnock, the man who signs players, gives them extra wages an appearance bonus to make sure they pay him to get in the team or on the bench. "The fact he could even talk about training is shocking, he was never there." The FA chief said he had not been in the job at the time and was unaware of what had happened. But Mr Collins said: "I think it would be pretty poor if someone has gone public and they don't have any contact from the FA asking why have they made this allegation." Speaking to The Telegraph after the committee meeting, Mr Collins said both the FA and police should investigate the claims made against Warnock two and a half years ago.

“My concern and the reason I bought it up was…they [the FA] were clearly aware of this because they had taken disciplinary action against the player but had they actually bothered to investigate the allegations he was making? "What the FA should be doing when these allegations are made, particularly from people within football, is that they are properly looked at. ''And I think what would be interesting to know is if the FA confirm that they took disciplinary action against the player for posting the comments on Twitter but did they bother to investigate why he’d done it? They need to understand from him or maybe speak to other people at the club to see whether they could corroborate what had been said."

Warnock, who is currently in charge at Cardiff, issued a strong statement in the wake of the allegations being brought up in Parliament. "These allegations are completely and utterly false, " he said.

"The FA Commission considered all of the evidence in detail in 2014 and it found that the allegations which were published about me were unfounded. Any suggestion that the FA failed to investigate this matter is simply untrue. "In fact, Mr Puncheon apologised to me and removed the allegations from his Twitter account.  The FA fined him £15,000 and he was warned as to his future conduct. "I am disappointed that these allegations have been repeated after Mr Puncheon’s apology and after the FA investigated fully.  If anyone had asked me the truth before publication, I would have pointed them to the FA website, where the facts are all easily accessible."

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