English Football At Serious Risk From Organised Crime - Report

The game in England is used for money laundering, amidst a host of other nefarious activities, according to a crime fighting agency...

English football is being used as a means for organised criminals to launder their proceeds, and is at risk from other crime-related activities, according to a report from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an organisation responsible for tracking the proceeds of organised crime.

The report also contains claims that clubs could be bought by criminals, used for tax evasion purposes and bet on illegally. It also hints at football club involvement in people trafficking, drug crime and corruption.

There are also two previously unpublished reports of players in the UK being involved in tax evasion, with the clubs complicit in the scam.

"A disclosure was made by a player, revealing that his signing-on fee was disguised as part of a fee to a foreign agent," BBC News quotes from the report.

"He confirmed that the agent then paid him £300,000 abroad and did not previously disclose this to the UK tax authorities.
"It is likely that the club concerned was fully aware that the payment to the agent included a signing-on fee for the player and the benefit to the club in such an arrangement is that it avoided social security contributions of £38,000."

Image rights provided a second case with a loophole to illegally exploit, the report claims, adding, "A player (non-UK national) entered into an image rights agreement with a club. The player had transferred the rights to exploit his image exclusively on a world-wide basis to a company registered in a known tax haven in return for shares of that company.

"Unlike all the other players at the club, he was the only individual not to have either a signing-on fee or a loyalty bonus and appearance fees.

"The club had not exploited the player's image in any way and after two years had sought professional advice, only to be advised that the image had no commercially exploitable value.

"Nonetheless, the club renegotiated both the playing and image rights contracts after three years, increasing the level of payments in both.

"The club concerned conceded that the image-rights agreement was part of the employment terms and paid over additional duties of £938,688. Additional duties of £404,480 were also to be paid over the future life of the image-rights contract."

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) refused to comment on either example for legal reasons, despite the law enforcement agency reportedly being involved in both cases, but a spokeswoman told the BBC, "Money laundering is a complex crime and one which HMRC is tackling.

"We have a very good track record in the field of law enforcement and we take money laundering and tax evasion extremely seriously, focusing significant resources into tackling them.

"Our investigations can and do result in criminal prosecution sending a clear message to anyone tempted to launder money that they are taking a serious risk"