FOOTBALL manager Harry Redknapp told police he handed over £250,000 to help Jim Smith secure his manager’s job at Oxford United, a jury heard yesterday.

Redknapp and former Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandaric are on trial accused of cheating the public revenue over payments of £189,000 put into a Monaco bank account.

Yesterday, Southwark Crown Court heard recordings of Redknapp’s interview with police where he spoke about a £250,000 investment as part of a scheme to take over United.

The previous day a former bank executive told the jury Redknapp lost £250,000 in an unsuccessful takeover bid.

In a recording of City of London police interviews, Redknapp said Mr Smith had asked him over the phone for the Oxford United cash.

Mr Smith is said to have told Redknapp “some mega-rich young boy” – Nick Merry, who used to play for Oxford and was the chairman when Woodstock Partners bought the club from Firoz Kassam in March, 2006 – had come over and was “about to buy the club”.

He only had 48 hours to complete the deal and could not get the £250,000 he needed in time, so Mr Smith asked Redknapp if he could lend him the money.

Redknapp said: “I said ‘Jim, what’s it got to do with me?’ He said ‘Harry... it’ll help me, I’m the manager. If he buys it I’ve got a job still’.”

“I lend him £250,000, I ring up the bank and said ‘Look, I said, Jim’s said you’ve got the money in five days, Harry. You’ve got my word’ – that’s 20 months ago and the guy didn’t buy the club and that’s how I am. I can tell you 10 stories like that.”

The Oxford Mail understands this does not relate to the takeover of the club in March 2006 but a later plan.

Both Redknapp, 64, of Poole, Dorset, and Mandaric, from Oadby, Leicestershire, deny two counts of cheating the public revenue when Redknapp was manager of Portsmouth.

The first charge 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 between May 1, 2004, and November 28, 2007.

The trial continues.