FOOTBALL manager Harry Redknapp lost £250,000 in a “very unsuccessful” plan to take over Oxford United, a trial over alleged tax-dodging heard yesterday.

Redknapp and former Portsmouth Football Club chairman Milan Mandaric are on trial accused of cheating the public revenue over money paid to the now Tottenham manager when he was in charge of the South Coast club.

Yesterday, at Southwark Crown Court, former HSBC Bank executive Alan Hills was questioned about Redknapp’s business dealings and revealed that the 64-year-old lost £250,000 in a scheme to take over Oxford United.

It was part of the defence team’s rebuttal of allegations that Redknapp was a “hard-headed businessman”.

Redknapp lost every penny of the £250,000 he gave in a loan as part of a plan to take control of the club, Mr Hills told the court.

Redknapp’s barrister John Kelsey-Fry asked Mr Hills: “Do you remember an occasion when he was persuaded to loan, at very short notice, £250,000 to buy Oxford United and that money just disappeared into the mist?”

Mr Hills replied: “I have never seen it, yes.”

Hr Hills said Redknapp had shown acumen as an investor in the property market, but he agreed with Mr Kelsey-Fry’s suggestion that “with the benefit of hindsight, some investments were disastrous”.

He added: “With regard to the shares (in Oxford United)... it is fair to say they were very unsuccessful.”

No further details were given in court about when the takeover scheme was hatched or what happened.

However, the Oxford Mail understands it was not the buyout of the club from Firoz Kassam by Woodstock Partners in March 2006, but a proposal in 2007.

Later the court heard Redknapp denied accusations of tax-dodging during a police interview, telling detectives: “I couldn’t even fill a team sheet in.”

He said he struggled with literacy, adding: “I write like a two-year-old and I can’t spell.”

He also claimed he was “the most disorganised person in the world” during interviews with officers from the City of London Police in 2009.

In tape recordings played to the court, Redknapp said: “I can’t work a computer, I don’t know what an email is, I can’t, I have never sent a fax and I’ve never even sent a text message.”

He added: “I have a big problem, I can’t write, so I don’t keep anything. I am the most disorganised person, I am ashamed to say, in the world.”

The case being heard at the South London court centres on £189,000 paid into a bank account in Monaco.

Both Redknapp, 64, of Poole, Dorset, and Mandaric, from Oadby, Leicestershire, deny two charges of cheating the public revenue.

The first charge of cheating the public revenue alleges that between April 1, 2002, and November 28, 2007 Mandaric paid $145,000 (£93,100) into the account.

The second charge for the same offence relates to a sum of $150,000 (£96,300) allegedly paid in between May 1, 2004, and November 28, 2007.

The trial continues.