Gianni Infantino reportedly struck a deal to help Man City minimize a punishment for an FFP breach.GETTY IMAGES
Leaked documents revealed Man City "struck a secret deal" with FIFA President Gianni Infantino -- helped by former France President Nicolas Sarkozy -- when he was the general secretary of UEFA to minimize a punishment for a "serious breach" of financial fair play rules, according to Martyn Ziegler of the LONDON TIMES. The documents claim Man City and Paris St. Germain breached FFP rules by €188M and €215M, respectively, in '14, and "tried to cover up the breach by having vast sponsorship deals connected to their oil-rich owners that were way beyond the true market value." The documents show that Infantino engaged in talks with execs from Man City and PSG to "strike deals acceptable to the clubs rather than impose punishments on them." Both clubs "eventually agreed to fines" of €20M. The documents show auditors from PricewaterhouseCoopers reported 84% of Man City's "other commercial income" originated from sponsors from Abu Dhabi and that the club had "hidden" €35 million in costs from UEFA in its annual statement of accounts. PSG's deal with the Qatar Tourist Authority was "even more blatant" -- the club used it to report €215M of income, despite independent assessors valuing it at €2.78M. Man City had threatened to take UEFA to the European courts. The club agreed to the €20M settlement on May 16, 2014, two weeks after Infantino sent an email to Man City Chair Khaldoon al-Mubarak with suggestions about how to settle with UEFA. A day earlier, Man City lawyer Simon Cliff wrote an "unfortunate email" to a club employee who informed him that Jean-Luc Dehaene, who had led the Club Financial Control Body's Investigatory Chamber until falling ill in early '14, had died. Cliff replied, "1 down, 6 to go." In a statement, Man City said, "We will not be providing any comment on out-of-context materials purported to have been hacked or stolen from City Football Group and Manchester City personnel and associated people. The attempt to damage the club's reputation is organised and clear" (LONDON TIMES, 11/3).
ETHICAL INTERFERENCE: REUTERS' Simon Evans reported Infantino broke FIFA's rules by "interfering in the rewriting of its ethics code," according to German magazine Der Spiegel. FIFA's Ethics Committee is "supposed to operate independently" from FIFA. But Spiegel said that leaked emails showed Infantino "was behind changes to the ethics code," which included a limitation period of 10 years on historical investigations into corruption and bribery. A FIFA spokesperson on Friday said that there was "nothing untoward in Infantino's correspondence" with the governing body's chief ethics judge over the redrafting of the code (REUTERS, 11/2).
FIFA RESPONDS: In London, Alex Richards reported FIFA "hit out" at Football Leaks' latest offering, declaring it as little more than "an attempt to undermine the new leadership of FIFA" and little more than a smear campaign aimed at Infantino. PSG, meanwhile, said that its compliance with the FFP rules had been "exemplary." FIFA said in a statement, "Four weeks ago, a group of journalists sent several hundred questions to FIFA, based on private and internal e-mails and other information which had been accessed (illegally) by third parties. Despite the fact that we answered the questions posed to us in a straight-forward and honest manner, certain media decided to ignore most of our answers and to distort both the facts and the truth in a deliberate attempt to discredit FIFA and to mislead their readers. This is evident. It seems obvious from the 'reporting' carried out in some media outlets that there is only one particular aim: an attempt to undermine the new leadership of FIFA and, in particular, the President, Gianni Infantino, and the Secretary General, Fatma Samoura. ... It is a fact that many former FIFA officials are currently facing criminal proceedings in Switzerland and abroad. ... It comes as no surprise that some of those who have been removed, replaced, or who are unhappy, continue to spread false rumors and innuendo about the new leadership (MIRROR, 11/3). The AFP reported Football Leaks claims Qatar and Abu Dhabi combined "have injected some €4.5 billion ($5.1B) in the last seven years" to increase the budgets of the clubs they own. Of that figure, €2.7B ($3.1B) has been into Man City via its Abu-Dhabi owners and from allegedly "overestimated" sponsorship deals (AFP, 11/3).
