Charlie Adam was target of illegal transfer: Holloway

LONDON - Blackpool manager Ian Holloway has claimed that Tottenham’s last-ditch bid to sign Charlie Adam stemmed from “an illegal approach” by another player’s agent.

Holloway claimed that a representative of the Omni football agency, who was at Bloomfield Road to tie up James Beattie’s loan move from Rangers, become involved in negotiations over Adam.

But Blackpool adopted a hard-line stance with agents, and Holloway quickly stepped in to block the talks.

The incident occurred on Monday after Liverpool’s increased bid of #6.8million for Scottish midfielder Adam was rejected by Blackpool chairman Karl Oyston.

“We signed James Beattie that day, and his agent was in finalising the deal. He went outside where Charlie was hanging round, and told him he might be able to help him,” The Sun quoted Holloway, as saying.

“The agent phoned Tottenham and tried to do the deal, and was telling Charlie how much more he’d be earning. Charlie came back in after he knew the Liverpool thing was off, saying ‘What’s going on?’

“His phone rang and it was this agent, who was completely scuppered. I took the phone off Charlie and said to this agent ‘What’s it got to do with you?’

“So it was ‘Hello, who are you? Illegal approach to my player, get stuffed. You’re not his agent, you don’t work for Tottenham, what on earth are you talking about? Phone down. The whole thing is sharks swimming around trying to bite pieces off my players,” Holloway said.

Adam’s agent is Kenny Moyes, brother of Everton boss David, who had left Bloomfield Road before the Spurs interest materialised. (ANI)