'The secret is to know when to stick and when to twist, when to bet and when to burn, when to bluff and when to hold. This whole business is one massive, never-ending card game and if you sit at the table long enough then maybe, just maybe, you're going to get so lucky that you'll beat the house or even break the bank. Unless, of course, the house breaks you first.'

From mere coffee boy, to a lowly scout, to multi-million pound wheeler dealer with the Premiership big guns and the cream of the Champions League, this book charts the Secret Agent's fast and furious progress through the dressing rooms, board rooms and bedrooms of England's top clubs. It doesn't just lift the lid on the true face of professional football, it tears it off and hurls it across the room.

This is a no-holds-barred, jaw-dropping insight into the true power-brokers of the world game: the moneymen and dealmakers who grease the wheels - or, more accurately, the palms - that make the whole football machine tick.

Scandalous, witty, fearless and occasionally heartless, The Secret Agent casts an astonishing new light on the ambition, greed and power in a cut-throat and self-obsessed world.