League Championship side Queens Park Rangers Manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink negotiated a fee of £55,000 ($71,250) to act as an ambassador for a sports company that "proposed selling players to his club," according to the London TELEGRAPH. The former Chelsea striker "agreed to fly to Singapore to speak to investors in a Far Eastern firm that was seeking to be involved in the transfer of players." He told undercover reporters posing as representatives of the firm, "Look, just try to make me happy ... come up with a nice figure." It comes after the Telegraph disclosed that England manager Sam Allardyce negotiated a £400,000 ($518,200)-per-year deal to represent the same company, which "in reality was a fictitious firm whose representatives were undercover reporters." Hasselbaink was told the Far East firm "wanted to become involved in the transfer of players." But he saw that as "no barrier to working with the firm, and was open to the idea of signing players they represented," despite the apparent conflict of interest with his job at QPR. He would potentially have been "spending his club’s money on players represented by a company that was paying him." Hasselbaink said that there was "nothing unusual about agreeing to make a speech and denied any wrongdoing." QPR said that it was "launching an internal investigation into the matter" but added "we have every confidence in our manager" (TELEGRAPH, 9/29).
