Former Liverpool and Newcastle United manager Graeme Souness fears his career could be ruined by claims of inconsistencies in his evidence to Lord Stevens.
Souness, who played with Liverpool and Sampdoria before managing the Merseysiders, Blackburn Rovers, Glasgow Rangers and Newcastle, is "furious" after being named in the Quest report into alleged transfer irregularities.
He told the
: "They have blackened my reputation without anything to back up their claims.
"Stevens' report states there was absolutely no evidence of improper payments to clubs, officials or players - and yet they throw my name in to their report to generate headlines.
"Their only justification is some vague nonsense about there being inconsistencies in my answers to their questions. What's that about?
"I've been in the professional game for 40 years and whether you like me or not, I've won more than 25 major honours right across Europe both as a player and a manager. And then some outfit of accountants write things that could destroy my life and my career, when their own report says there was no evidence of wrongdoing."
Stevens' Quest team conducted a 15-month investigation into football's bung culture and have found 17 transfers - involving Newcastle, Bolton, Middlesbrough, Portsmouth and Chelsea - they are unwilling to pass as 'clean'.
Souness, Sam Allardyce and Harry Redknapp were the only managers named in the report. But the former Rangers boss insists he has done nothing wrong and revealed that Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd handled transfer negotiations during his time at St James's Park.
"He controlled how much Newcastle paid for a player, how much salary that individual received and how much the agent would be paid," Souness added. "I wasn't involved in any discussions or meetings about those transactions. Not about the fee, the salary or the agents' fees.
"The only exception was the Boumsong deal.
"I knew the details of that transfer fee because he was coming in from Rangers and I'm a close friend of their chairman David Murray. But the rest was the chairman's business."
