To get thousands of BestPrice football betting odds, read previews, and claim a host of free bets and offers – click here.

England manager Steve McClaren’s agent Colin Gordon believes bung-taking is endemic in English football.

Gordon suspects millions of pounds have left the game in recent years, as agents, players and managers conspire to defraud the sporting public.

“We’re not talking about the £500,000 bungs, or the old brown paper envelope stuffed with a few notes,” he said.

“We’re talking about millions upon millions. It is a very sophisticated business – it’s cleverly disguised.

“If I buy a player from eastern Europe and find he is valued at £2m by his club I say ‘I can sell him for £5m in England’.

“The club get £500,000 but the other £2.5m makes its way into a separate account.

“Since the Premiership began, I would estimate that tens of millions of pounds has gone out of the game this way.

“It’s accepted abroad. We pretend we are holier than thou. But I’ve spoken to people over there and the English game is considered the ‘dirty man of Europe’.

“We are the worst – and it shouldn’t be accepted. I can’t argue with the public seeing us as the scum of the earth.”

Gordon was speaking in the wake of the BBC Panaorama programme which featured allegations of bungs being paid to managers. He believes that efforts to curb the bung culture are doomed to failure because legislators have no idea what is going on.

“Spare me those silly regulations from people who don’t know what goes on,” he added.

“It’s time for a poacher to turn gamekeeper. Someone who knows how to regulate it because they know how and what goes on. Some of the people getting involved haven’t got a clue.

“The administrators suddenly jumping on the bandwagon are laughable.

“The experts, the real experts, get ignored. I’ve been in this game all my life and I’m still waiting for someone to ask me a question. They might be scared by what they find out, mind.

“It is something you can’t prove and it is a waste of time and energy trying to do it. The game does not want to embarrass itself by lifting up the carpet and showing what’s been swept underneath.

“You will never catch a manager out talking directly about it. There will be a line that you detect in a conversation and you immediately know where it is heading.

“I’ve had that and pretended to be deaf and dumb for the next few minutes and talk about something else. It’s never referred to again. But you know it’s there.

“We need to draw a line under it and prevent it from happening any more.”

To get thousands of BestPrice football betting odds, read previews, and claim a host of free bets and offers – click here.