Manchester City have been accused of severely breaching UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules by masking owner-contributions as sponsorship deals.
The German Magazine Der Spiegel has detailed the English club’s supposed dodgy dealings in a series of ‘Football Leaks’ articles, which they claim to be supported by emails from the team’s own staff.
Manchester City faced similar accusations in 2014, but were only given a fine by UEFA, when others were calling for the club’s expulsion from the Champions League.
This was seen as a slap on the wrist for City, escaping any significant penalty for their financial foul-play.
However, with the information put forth in these leaks, the lack of punishment is glaringly obvious and suspicious.
Der Spiegel claim that an email by Chief Financial Officer Jorge Chumillas shows that of £67.5million Etihad sponsorship deals were supposed to pay to Manchester City, they actually only paid £8million.
The rest alleged to have come from the club’s owner, Sheik Mansour, through one of his affiliated companies.
The leaks also detail an operation, dubbed “Project Longbow,” City officials enacted to help escape UEFA’s FFP rules.
In this operation, Manchester City sold the rights of their players’ images to a third-party company, who was merely a disguised subsidiary of the club itself.
This reduced on-the-book costs, while providing another revenue stream to pump money into the club.
While City is at the heart of the accusations, the leaks make references to other clubs as well.
Recently, Bayern Munich were accused of attempting to organise a Super League of European elite teams.
These recent leaks give details about these plans, apparently found in an email sent by Bayern officials to Real Madrid which contained a binding terms sheet.
The league would contain 11 permanent teams, consisting of the biggest clubs in the EPL, Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga, with five guest teams to make up a competition of 16.
The consequences of such a league would be monumental, effectively destroying the Champions League, while being catastrophic to domestic competitions, which would be without their best teams.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino warned that any players involved in such a super league would be banned from international fixtures including the World Cup.
However, Infantino may have more to worry about than just a potential breakaway competition.
The leaks accuse him of aiding Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain in getting reduced punishments for their breaches of FFP rules back in 2014.
Infantino, then working for UEFA, is said to have met with club officials during secret meetings to help them avoid being kicked out of the Champions League.
Ominously for Australian soccer, in the latest set of leaks, references were made to Manchester City using its sister clubs for “hidden payments and tax savings.”
The A-League’s Melbourne City are one such team under the Manchester City franchise, meaning the next set of leaks may very well directly involve the Australian club.
By Brandon Clark
