Football clubs perfect for money laundering
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Football clubs perfect for money laundering
PARIS - Criminals are increasingly using football for money laundering and tax evasion, helped by the globalisation of the sport and financial needs of clubs, an anti-corruption body said on Wednesday.
The world's most popular sport is attracting criminals with its huge cross-border money transfers and often obscure accounting methods, a unit of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report.
"Football clubs are indeed seen by criminals as the perfect vehicles for money laundering," the OECD's Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said.
While other sports like cricket, rugby, horse racing or motor racing were also under threat, football was "an obvious candidate to examine money laundering through sport" because it dwarfed all the others in its global scale.
In one case, the report said, investigators thwarted an attempt to launder money through the purchase of a famous Italian football club with funds supplied by a criminal association operating in central Italy.
"Proceedings for money laundering, insider trading, extortion, unfair competition and other offences are ongoing," it said, without naming the club.
Based on 20 cases of money laundering in football, the report concluded that the structure, financing and culture of the sport are all conducive to financial crimes.
It cited two examples of tax evasion involving players in Britain, one linked to image rights and the other to a signing-on fee that was hidden from tax authorities.