The League Managers Association (LMA) is “ex-tremely concerned” by newspaper allegations that Premier League managers have received “bungs” for player transfers, it said yesterday.

The Daily Telegraph reported that eight current and former managers had received money for transfers after the paper filmed soccer agents boasting about how many managers they had paid off.

“The LMA is extremely concerned by the current situation of allegations made against a number of managers. We take the allegations very seriously as they are obviously damaging to the game,” the LMA said in a statement.

“We are in regular communication with The FA to establish the facts relating to those allegations.

“We know The FA has requested full disclosure, from the Telegraph, of all the relevant information it has and we are working with The FA in dealing with the allegations, following the correct processes and procedures.”

The allegations have once again shone a spotlight on the role of football agents and the regulatory framework that governs them.

The chairman of the Association of Football Agents (AFA), Mike Miller, issued a statement yesterday saying there was a need for greater transparency.

Miller highlighted the decision by world governing body FIFA to end its global licensing system for agents in 2015, which left it up to individual countries to supervise “intermediaries”.

“The global move to deregulation has not worked and it has allowed the system to be more open to manipulation and abuse,” Miller said.

“The time has come for the key stakeholders in this country to genuinely come together to establish a new framework and we would be happy to progress those discussions with immediate effect.”