Willie McKay, despite not being a prominent public face, is one of the most controversial figures in Scottish football in recent years. A one-time bookmaker with inherent skills at sharply turning a deal, McKay duly ditched his former profession and transformed himself into one of football’s most sought-after agents.

The Scot chose to take up residence in Monaco, where he not only enjoyed the advantages of the Principality’s generous tax laws, but used his knowledge of football to start shipping players across the English channel. His clients include players such as Joey Barton, the Newcastle United midfield player, and James McFadden, the Everton and Scotland forward.

When players’ wages, rather than transfer fees, became the key issue from the mid1990s onwards, a middleman like McKay suddenly found football to be an extremely rewarding business. McKay has been involved in various deals that have provoked headlines. He was behind the amazing saga of Jean-Alain Boumsong’s move from Auxerre to Rangers in 2004 – effectively a free transfer between the two clubs – which was followed six months later by the French player’s £8 million switch to Newcastle.

When the Stevens Inquiry reported its findings in June, it criticised McKay for not cooperating with the investigation but three weeks ago it issued a statement clearing his name. “No evidence of irregular payments was found in the transfers in the inquiry period which involved the agent Willie McKay,” it said. In the final report McKay had been criticised for failing to cooperate about his role in Boumsong’s move from Rangers to Newcastle as well as the transfers of Amdy Faye, also to Newcastle, and Benjani Mwaruwari and Aliou Cissé to Portsmouth.

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The fact that the police are carrying out the investigation raises the issue of whether the football authorities are equipped properly to regulate the game

Matt Dickinson

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BACKGROUND

• Police arrest Redknapp over dealings

• Whispers will not go away for wheeler-dealer

• Newell left on a road to nowhere

• Mandaric will ''offer full support' to police

BACKGROUND

• Fans’ chants for Mandaric silenced

• Former bookie who knew value of being the middleman

• Faye gets caught in Redknapp’s net

• Old pals that survived Upton Park fallout

BACKGROUND

• Police moves highlight FA resources shortfall

• How events unfolded

The inquiry also discovered that McKay had given a racehorse to Harry Redknapp, the Portsmouth manager. Redknapp told the inquiry he may have owned the horse but insisted that he had not made any money out of it because the horse was a failure.

McKay was also behind the fractious move of Pascal Chimbonda from Wigan to Tottenham in 2006. In Scotland, McKay famously fell out with Rod Petrie, the chief executive of Hibernian, after becoming agent to Scott Brown and Kevin Thomson, two prized players of the Edinburgh club for whom McKay immediately engineered moves to Celtic and Rangers respectively. McKay has tended to be an agent whom club’s supporters grow to loathe, but there is probably some truth in the counterview that he serves his player-clients extremely well. McKay may, though, be about to face his biggest challenge yet in keeping his reputation intact.

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