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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.