WARREN Feeney's agent has hit back at Peter Phillips over the Cherries chairman's comments about his handling of the Ulsterman's affairs.

Stephen Hughes, of the Base Soccer Agency, says he was "disappointed" that Phillips had felt it necessary to criticise him in Friday's Daily Echo and also in the matchday programme.

Previewing Feeney's return with his new club Stockport, Phillips told the Echo: "My belief at the time and I'll say it again now is that Warren Feeney's agent played an unfortunate role in disturbing his player and making life difficult for both us and Stockport."

And in his From The Boardroom column in the programme, Philips wrote: "I'm not so keen on his agent, but that is another story."

Neither Feeney nor his representative was prepared to publicly comment as negotiations between the two parties took place before the striker left for Stockport in the summer.

But in response to Phillips's remarks, Hughes told the Daily Echo: "It's been a long, drawn-out affair and we've tried to keep a dignified silence so I was disappointed with Peter's comments.

"I just think it's all a bit shabby and it seems Peter is trying to score cheap points at our expense to get the public on his side."

"We have done 43 deals in the past calendar year - including 16 with Premiership clubs - and the only disappointing comments have come from Bournemouth."

Feeney, who arrived at Dean Court following a free transfer from Leeds in 2001, moved to Stockport for £45,000 in July after rejecting Cherries' offer of a new 12-month contract.

In July 2003, he ended weeks of speculation by signing a one-year deal after the club had turned down his request for a three-year contract.

Hughes added: "We put forward a three-year contract that wouldn't have made Warren the top-paid player at Bournemouth and although we felt it was achievable, the club didn't want to commit to it.

"They only offered him a one-year deal which was due to be reviewed after an agreed number of games and that was triggered in the second week of December.

"By the last week of February, we still hadn't heard anything from the club so I assumed they weren't interested in Warren.

"Then, in March, they put forward a two-year contract with an increase on what he was getting before they sent another offer out in April which was on reduced terms to the one they had offered previously.

"We knew other clubs were interested and Bournemouth did well out of Warren because he could have gone to Scotland and they wouldn't have got anything.

"When he first signed for Bournemouth it took us a week to convince Warren to sign plus we managed to get Leeds to forego their 50 per cent on any future transfer fee - we didn't have any complaints from the club over that."

Phillips countered: "I don't recognise Mr Hughes description of events, but I prefer not to comment any further."