Browny Backs Sam's Innocence

Last updated : 21 September 2006 By Matt Bottom
He said, "They are taking on one of the strongest characters in the modern game," Brown said.

"If Sam is wronged, he will come out fighting and I will be 100 per cent behind the big man.

"He has never run away from confrontation in his life, either inside or outside football, and has always met every issue head on.

"In all my time working with Sam I have never known him do anything like what was suggested in the programme," he said.

"Getting players into the club was never easy, because we were operating under financial restrictions," he said. "We couldn't afford to bring in players who weren't good enough, so we set up what we called our five-pronged attack.

"First we identified the target through our scouting network, which worked on an ABCD marks system; then the player would be brought into the club and shown round; after that he'd face psychometric tests then medicals and finally physical tests.

"Every box had to be ticked before we even got down to the finance, and I can vouch for the fact that Sam was never involved on the financial side. That was for other people at the club.

"Never, in the five or six years of fine tuning the system, did Sam sign a player who did not tick enough boxes. If he had, it would have set alarm bells ringing.

"There are a whole host of hoops to go through for a player to sign for Bolton Wanderers and to suggest it could all hang on the fact that somebody's paid Sam's son X-amount of pounds is absolutely ludicrous.

"All the programme highlighted for me was that a few agents were trying to get a deal done for themselves. It was rubbish."