FOOTBALL agent Peter Harrison has spoken extensively for the first time about being subjected to a television sting.

Harrison was one of several agents investigated by the BBC Panorama team in a programme entitled Undercover: Dirty Secrets, in September last year. The show claimed it would unveil the alleged secret bung culture, or illegal payments, in world football.

The programme, however, proved to be nothing more than a waste of tax-payers' money. The Panorama team, who secretly filmed their targets, uncovered nothing illegal, and no one has been charged as a consequence of the programme or the subsequent Lord Stephens' inquiry in to corruption in football.

The 48-year-old agent, who runs MPH Soccer Management in Gateshead, has always maintained he was innocent which has now been vindicated.

"I had nothing to hide from day one," said the former Newcastle United and Gateshead player. "And I think that my innocence comes across quite clearly in the television programme.

"I've never taken a bung in my life and never will do. The BBC took six months to film that programme and they had done their homework.

"They did well to set up the loaded questions which they delivered, and bear in mind they were offering to buy me out for £1.8m."

But football agents aren't the only ones to have had their reputation and integrity questioned over the last 12 months.

The BBC's image in the last year has become tarnished considerably following allegations of phone-in fixing and the treatment of the Queen in a recent documentary.

Harrison did manage to raise a smile when the controversy raised its ugly head.

He said: "I had to laugh when the BBC were in the dock again over the trailer of the Queen, which had been edited to look like she had reacted in a way which she quite clearly had not.

"They did the same with me in the trailers for the bung show. They put a few clips in the wrong sequence which can lead the public to draw the wrong conclusions.

"My only regret about the show is the distress that it caused my wife, but as I've already said I had nothing to hide."

Read the full interview with Harrison in Players Inc Magazine, out now. It also features former Premiership referee Dermot Gallagher's account of a fierce Wear -Tyne derby at the Stadium of Light