Redknapp dismisses 'tapping up' rules

Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie has been quoted suggesting illegal approaches are rife, and there are other claims of his club being unhappy with Spurs signing Peter Crouch when others were willing to pay more money for the striker. Redknapp argues the role of agents means players always know which teams are interested in their signature.

"Every club lets a player know that they're interested and anyone who says they don't is telling lies," he said. "It's not a case of tapping a player up, it's a case of the agent ringing up and asking if you're interested."

The former Pompey boss added: "The message gets back to the player that the club is interested and then he makes up his mind where he wants to go.

"We had a deal for Darren Bent with Stoke for £15million but Darren wanted to go to Sunderland so what can you do? We were willing to pay £10million for Peter and Sunderland were willing to pay £12million but Peter didn't want to go to Sunderland. It happens in every transfer.

"There was no tapping up or anything else. They've all got agents, the agents talk to the people at the football club and he (Crouch) ended up going to Tottenham."

One school of thought is to scrap the rules on approaching players who have a contract at another club - but Redknapp feels it would not change much.

"It wouldn't make any difference, really," he said. "You're not going to get players out of Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea or Arsenal. You're only going to be dealing in the same market, really."

A drawback to the current system is that managers such as Redknapp regularly get offered unsuitable players.

"You say 'look, we're in the Premier League, not the Conference. We're Tottenham'," he added. "You choose a player but then it's only a decision of whether your club can afford them, and the chairman or chief-ex comes back and says he's too expensive or 'yeah, I've done a deal with them'."