Much of this week has been spent trying to digest ‘Football Leaks; Uncovering The Dirty Deals Behind The Beautiful Game’, by Der Spiegel journalists Rafael Buchsmann and Michael Wurzinger. On reflection, ‘trying to digest’ doesn’t quite do it justice; making a concerted effort not to vomit would be nearer the truth. You can enjoy the same experience for a snip at £7.25 from Amazon at the moment!
The book, a brilliant but chilling read, tells the story of the Football Leaks website, operated anonymously at the time but since known to be the work of Portuguese fan Rui Pinto, since arrested and charged with hacking and extortion. Pinto is presented as a crusader for truth and openness in his efforts to expose shady dealings in the game we love and he still gets a lot of support out there. I can’t find an update on his status or whereabouts since 2020, when he was tried.
(Support for Pinto at Dortmund)
Football Leaks somehow managed to access thousands of sensitive documents, including player contracts and ownership deals. The first target was Doyen Sports, a Kazakh owned entity, shell companies hidden within shell companies like a set of Russian dolls, which got into the game through Third Party Ownership, a practice now illegal but which almost certainly still goes on In a covert way. Doyen purchased shares in players’ transfer fees, effectively buying a share in a player from a club, gambling on their value going up to secure the biggest profit. Except they’d make sure there were clauses that ensured they made a profit regardless. Clubs selling at a ‘loss’ would still have to reimburse Doyen, often more than they had ‘invested’. They would ‘support’ struggling clubs (Twente Enschede were the first and it nearly finished them off) by buying shares (in players, not the club), but then would cream off profits, manufacture deals to suit themselves and get heavily involved in dictating transfer policy. Add to this reports of bribery, backhanders, sexual favours and it all looks pretty iffy. There’s an example of a club selling a player, now playing in the Premier League, for 40 million, having bought him for 20 and still ending up out of pocket. Sounds plain stupid, but clubs desperate for quick injections of cash will clearly make crazy decisions!
Doyen were alleged to be involved in massive transfers, several of the very biggest, and all sorts of other dodgy practice. Misreporting of fees, siphoning large amounts off to agents and mysterious companies in the British Virgin Islands and helping some of the biggest name players avoid paying tax in the countries they were operating in.
As well as an in-depth account of all of this - and it speaks volumes about the kind of people involved that all concerned in reporting feared for their lives at times and Pinto ended up needing to go into a witness protection programme - FL uncovered obscene player bonuses; a certain maverick Italian’s astonishing bonus system for not getting sent off and a million Euros if he could avoid splitting at an opponent and tax avoidance schemes that have robbed nation states of billions.
The book also explains the widespread practice of players having their own companies to sell their image rights back to their clubs, a tidy way for a multi millionaire to further reduce his tax burden by paying lower rate corporation tax. Legal (in the UK but not everywhere)but surely morally questionable.
Another interesting chapter is on sponsorship, dropping the bombshell that Adidas pay Real Madrid more per year (100 million euros, 40 million of that reputedly in hard cash!) than a middling Bundesliga team‘s total income. By comparison, the same year Puma paid Dortmund 9 million. Mind the gap!
It’s a difficult read that paints a picture of a thoroughly unpleasant world where multi-millionaire businessmen and players do their best to keep hold of every penny that comes their way by any means. Where ‘loyalty’ is bought (some astonishing loyalty bonuses reported!) and players are seemingly incentivised only by filthy lucre, with fifty thousand Euro bonuses for a CL win in any round commonplace. Shadowy figures seem to run the game and treat clubs, players and fans as commodities to be exploited. We knew lots of that, but it’s the cynicism, scale and greed of it that is so horrible to face. It’s worth the effort though. The actual FL website is currently ‘disappeared’, but many of the big ‘reveals’ are still available to read in relatively digestable format here:
One of my own favourites possibly being the ‘suggestion’ in the contracts that that nice David Beckham charges UNICEF, for whom he is famously an ambassador, for first class flights; even if he hadn’t used them.
There’s also an excellent article on it all here at the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/03/how-football-leaks-is-exposing-corruption-in-european-soccer
The last I can find on Pinto is that his trial started in September 2020 and that the judge found allegedly dubious and criminal acts conducted by those investigating hIm. There seems to be nothing more after that.
Onto cheerier matters - a well-deserved late point for Forest at QPR tonight In front of over 2,800 travelling supporters. Friday night, match on telly, £30 a ticket, team in bottom half of table, little to shout about in over 25 years… It’s terrific support, though you could say it’s the kind of blind faith the people involved in the chicanery outlined above rely on. We’ll swallow anything for a chance of success. Let’s be more positive than that here though and enjoy it as a show of proper support, loyalty and attachment to a culturally and socially important part of our lIves. In which case, all the more important that the bastards don’t kill it for good.
No multi-zillion euro deals likely to affect anything at Goole AFC tomorrow, where I’m off to see Maltby Main. The Main can rest assured that my £25 shirt sponsorship money is perfectly clean and that my regular half time 50:50 draw payment is equally all above board. I’ll not be leaning on Hugo to throw one into his own net anytime soon.
I’m told to expect a decent ground, a good tea bar and for it to be bloody cold. Bring it on!
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