Football boss Harry Redknapp threatened to "sue the bollocks" off a journalist as he angrily denied taking bungs, a court has heard. The Tottenham Hotspur manager also said Milan Mandaric did not know what he was talking about in a 2009 telephone conversation with a News of the World reporter. In short extracts read out to a jury at Southwark Crown Court, Redknapp told Rob Beasley he had "the best accountants in England", claiming the Inland Revenue was fully aware of his dealings in Monaco. Mr Beasley spoke to Redknapp days after a telephone interview with Mandaric, the former Portsmouth FC chairman. When Mr Beasley described how Mandaric said the money sent to Redknapp's offshore accounts were investments outside football, the Spurs boss replied that Mandaric did not know what he was talking about, adding: "What is he talking about? It is a bonus." Explaining that the payments surrounded profit made on the sale of Peter Crouch from Portsmouth to Aston Villa, Redknapp added: "If it was something dodgy I would have gone over there and brought it back in a briefcase." When Beasley asked him whether he had paid any tax in the UK on it, Redknapp replied: "Haven't been asked to, Rob." Redknapp said "there ain't nothing crooked in it" as the telephone conversation went on, the court heard. "Don't say bung," Redknapp said. "It's nothing to do with a bung. It's paid by the chairman. How can it be a bung when the chairman of the football club paid me?" Redknapp and Mandaric deny two counts of cheating the public revenue when he was manager of Portsmouth Football Club.
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