Southampton have pledged to assist the Football Association and Premier League after assistant manager Eric Black featured in the Daily Telegraph's investigations into corruption in football.
Saints pre-empted the newspaper's latest round of articles under the strapline 'Football For Sale' by saying they had requested details from the Telegraph - a request they said had been turned down.
The Telegraph claim that Black had offered advice on how to bribe officials at other clubs. He was filmed apparently saying there are staff at other clubs who possibly be persuaded to give information about a player to a management company for money. He has denied the allegations.
The Telegraph posted a video of Black, 52, meeting an undercover reporter in a hotel, the journalist purporting to be a representative of a Far East firm looking to invest in English football.
According to the report, the meeting was arranged by Scott McGarvey, the football agent who also teed-up Sam Allardyce's now ill-fated meeting with undercover reporters which cost him his job as England manager. McGarvey also denies any wrongdoing.
The video appears to show Black and McGarvey discussing managers and coaches in the lower leagues and how they could possibly be persuaded to identify players who could be signed up on management contracts.
FA rules state that intermediaries "must not give, offer or seek to offer, any consideration of any kind" to a club official "in return for any benefit, service, favour or any kind of preferential treatment".
A spokesman for Black told the Telegraph: "[Mr Black] does not recall Mr McGarvey making suggestions that football officials should be paid during transfer negotiations - this was not the purpose of the meeting so far as our client understood it. Any suggestion that he was complicit in such discussions is false."
The club's statement read: "Southampton Football Club has today been made aware by The Daily Telegraph that, as part of their ongoing investigation, the club's assistant first team manager Eric Black will feature as part of an article in tomorrow's paper.
"The club immediately requested to be sent, by The Daily Telegraph, the details of this article, but the newspaper declined to share any further information.
"We have today contacted the FA and The Premier League, and intend to work closely with both bodies on this matter when the facts become clear.
"Southampton Football Club is fully committed to investigating any situation that directly or indirectly relates to our club, employees or the wider community."
Earlier in the day, Black's club chairman, Ralph Krueger, revealed his dismay at the current allegations of corruption in English football and called for tighter regulation of player transfers.
The 57-year-old Canadian told ESPN that this week's reports had "shocked" and "upset" the Saints board.
But Krueger said the Premier League club's recent success has been built on "honest and open" values and he now hoped that the rest of football would follow suit.
"We've been a club that's been driving, wanting to get control of the evolving agent world around us and we believe we're going to have ears now," said Krueger, a former ice hockey player who went on to coach Switzerland and the National Hockey League's Edmonton Oilers.
"We're going to use this, for sure, as a club, to fight for change and to fight for more regulation.
"We are all for regulation, and we are one of the most disciplined clubs in English football in terms of the way we deal with agents and youth academy players."
Black was appointed to Southampton's coaching staff during the summer as assistant to Claude Puel.
A former Scotland international, he had a distinguished playing career with Aberdeen and as a coach has worked for the likes of Celtic, Birmingham, Sunderland, Blackburn, Wigan, Rotherham and Aston Villa.
