Sam Allardyce is cleared from any suspected criminal wrongdoing.
He has called on the Football Association to expedite its decision on whether he will face disciplinary action over the newspaper sting that led to his departure from the England manager’s job after being told he would not be the subject of a police investigation.
The City of London police revealed on Friday that it would investigate a "single suspected offence of bribery" after reviewing material gathered by the Daily Telegraph as part of an investigation into football corruption, which made allegations against a number of managers.
"Detectives from the City of London Police Economic Crime Directorate have reviewed material gathered by a recent Daily Telegraph investigation into suspected corruption in football," it said in a statement. "This review of the material has concluded and the decision has been taken to begin a criminal investigation into a single suspected offence of bribery."
Having received written confirmation that he would not face a police investigation, Allardyce said he welcomed the decision. "I was always confident that this would be the case as there was no evidence against me. I now ask that the Football Association deals with this matter as quickly as possible," said the 62-year-old, whose England managerial reign lasted one match and 67 days after he was caught up in the sting. "I would like to thank my friends and family who have stood by me during this difficult period. The position of England head coach is the pinnacle of any English manager’s career and it was my dream job."
He added: "While I am sad that my tenure came to an end early, I am nonetheless proud to have been chosen to manage the England football team and hope that today’s confirmation from the police will give me the opportunity to move on."
The FA has said it may open disciplinary proceedings against Allardyce, with whom it agreed a payoff of about £1m, and others implicated but only once it has reviewed the Telegraph’s material in full. That cannot happen until it is returned to the newspaper by the City of London police. It is unclear whether that will happen until it has finished its investigation into the single charge of bribery referred to in its statement.
The FA had said it had to part company with Allardyce because sticking by Roy Hodgson’s successor would have made the governing body’s position as the game’s regulator untenable.
"Every time there was a marginal call we judged we would have Sam Allardyce thrown back at us every time. The England job is the most important thing within the FA remit but the FA covers many other things too and I appreciate it probably has disproportionate importance but we just thought our ability to operate was compromised, it was going to be a drag on us for a considerable period of time," said the chief executive, Martin Glenn shortly afterwards.
"It was the hard decision not the easy decision but we judged weighing everything up that was the right thing to do."
It was reported that Allardyce had offered advice on how to circumvent rules on third-party ownership on the covert film but the FA strategy director, Robert Sullivan, later confirmed before a parliamentary inquiry that was not the case.
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