Keep your eye on the ball, Redknapp jurors warned

Jurors hearing Harry Redknapp’s tax evasion trial were warned to “keep their eyes on the ball” when they consider their verdicts.

The prosecution alleged that the Tottenham Hotspur manager was “driven with his back to the wall to lie” when he claimed that he gave a sports journalist false information about why more than £90,000 was paid into his Monaco bank account.

Redknapp, 64, told Southwark Crown Court in London this week that the money was given to him in 2002 by Milan Mandaric, 73, his former boss at Portsmouth Football Club, as an investment that had nothing to do with his employment.

But prosecutor John Black, QC, urged the jury in a closing speech to conclude that the sum was in fact a bonus paid to Redknapp arising from Portsmouth’s profits on the sale of striker Peter Crouch to Aston Villa.

He said tax was “in the nature of the game” in the football industry and Redknapp knew he had to pay it on his income, including any bonuses.

Mr Black told the jury: “You may have little difficulty in concluding that if it was a bonus, no tax was deducted, no tax was paid – and indeed no tax has ever been paid in relation to that bonus.”