Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp will have to mastermind the club’s challenge for a top-four place in the Premier League and qualification for next year’s UEFA Champions League under a cloud.   The shadow of criminal proceedings, which are related to his time as manager of South Coast strugglers Portsmouth, has been cast by the announcement last week that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs are to formally charge him with “cheating the public revenue” after investigations into a £10,000 payment involving the Lilywhites’ boss and his then-chairman at Portsmouth, Milan Mandaric, now in the same role at Championship side Leicester City.

Events surrounding the side’s shock home defeat to Wolves on December 12^th had threatened to derail their top-four challenge.

It soon emerged that a number of players had organised a secret Christmas party in Dublin three days before the match, and an allegation from a Spurs fan that left-back Benoit Assou-Ekotto had assaulted him during a pitchside confrontation immediately after it.

Under the guise of a golfing trip, sixteen Spurs players partied across the Irish Sea in defiance of Redknapp’s orders not to hold such an event. The ringleader was reported to be Dubliner Robbie Keane, whose White Hart Lane future was already uncertain.   Redknapp told the media that the matter would be dealt with internally, creating the impression that the players would be heavily punished, although he insisted that the squad had “trained brilliantly” on their return from the Irish capital and that their actions had not contributed to the Wolves defeat.

Keane had already been linked with a January move to Celtic as Redknapp has recently favoured a strike partnership of Jermaine Defoe and Peter Crouch. However, the much-travelled Irish international remains club captain.

The club issued a statement this week after news emerged that Redknapp will be charged over unpaid tax connected to a payment he received from Mandaric eight years ago. HMRC are due to instigate proceedings against Redknapp on January 11, during the transfer window, always a busy time for the 62-year-old.

Redknapp’s lawyers claimed HMRC’s decision was “totally misconceived.” And the club added that while it considered “this matter to be a private tax issue which pre-dates Harry’s employment with the club and is not related to football matters…he has the full support of the club.”

Spurs face two lunchtime London derbies over the Christmas weekend, visiting Fulham on Boxing Day and hosting one of Redknapp’s former clubs West Ham on Bank Holiday Monday.