Harry Redknapp faces court hearing over tax evasion charges

Redknapp faces charges of tax evasion (AP )

Harry Redknapp is hoping charges of tax evasion that have hung over him since the start of the year will be dismissed at a court hearing in London tomorrow.

Lawyers for Tottenham boss Redknapp will appear at Southwark Crown Court alongside with the representatives of respective former Portsmouth chairman and chief executive Milan Mandaric and Peter Storrie in a bid to prevent their April trial going ahead.

The trio were charged in January following a three-year City of London Police and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs investigation into the financial affairs of Pompey, where Redknapp was manager until October 2008.

All three men deny the charges and will seek to have them dismissed tomorrow.

Should 63-year-old Redknapp succeed, it would be seen as a boost to his hopes of replacing Fabio Capello as England manager in the summer of 2012.

He has made no secret of his desire to do so and is the bookmakers' favourite for the job.

Redknapp was charged with two counts of cheating the public revenue of an estimated £40,000 after voluntarily attending London's Bishopsgate police station in January.

The move came at the end of an exhaustive 26-month police and tax inquiry into alleged corruption in English football.

Charges concerned two payments, totalling 295,000 US dollars, alleged to have been made from Mandaric to Redknapp via a bank account in Monaco, evading the tax and National Insurance contributions due between April 1, 2002 and November 28, 2007.

Redknapp's arrest was part of a wider inquiry, dubbed Operation Apprentice, into alleged football corruption.

He was held in November 2007 by investigators examining a number of transfer deals at Portsmouth.

The decision sparked a furious response from Redknapp, who accused police of targeting him because of his high profile.

Mandaric, now chairman of Leicester, was charged with tax evasion relating to the payment of 295,000 US dollars to another person via a Monaco bank account, evading tax and National Insurance.

Storrie was charged with concealing a signing-on fee for ex-Portsmouth player Amdy Faye by paying it into the midfielder's bank account.

The allegation related to the transfer of Faye from Auxerre to Fratton Park for £1.5million in August 2003.

In May 2008, Redknapp and wife Sandra launched a court challenge against his arrest and the search of their home in Sandbanks, Poole.

They were awarded £1,000 damages against City of London Police after the High Court ruled a search of their home was unlawful.