The Political Economy of Football V2

Professional football has been added to the EU’s money-laundering risk watchlist. The European Commission said this week that the complex structure and lack of transparency in the game 'created a fertile ground for the use of illegal resources'. They added that 'questionable sums of money with no apparent or explicable financial return or gain are being invested in the sport'. The Commission’s report into money-laundering identified football, along with 47 other goods and services, as an area that could be exploited by criminals. The decision follows a scandal in Belgium last year when federal prosecutors started an investigation into allegations of illicit fees paid to players and referees.

At least one professional football club is under investigation for money laundering, the security minister has told MPs. Ben Wallace criticised the football authorities for failing to raise alerts about suspicious behaviour. Football has been identified by financial investigators as a prime target for money laundering because of its international transfers involving agents, managers and other intermediaries. 'Dirty' money could be used to buy a player or a club. When the club or player is sold, the money is apparently clean A number of football executives were charged with money laundering after the Fifa corruption scandal. Last year Jorge Luis Arzanga, an Argentine who worked for Credit Suisse and Julius Baer banks in Switzerland, pleaded guilty in New York to a money laundering plot. This involved transferring at least $25m in bribes from a sports marketing agency to football officials using accounts at the banks he worked for. Criminals can also become involved in bett...