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Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich had secret investments in footballers that were not owned by his club, an investigation found.
Among the players was Peruvian winger Andre Carrillo, who played Chelsea in Champions League matches in 2014.
He had the player rights through a company based in the British Virgin Islands.
Abramovich’s spokeswoman emphasized that no rules or regulations were broken.
But the former president of the Football Association, Lord Triesman, has questioned whether it was “correct” for the owner of a football club to have an interest in players from other teams.
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Twelve players on the field
A leak of documents – “suspicious activity reports” from banks – which have been dubbed FinCEN Files and which BBC Panorama saw – has revealed that Abramovich is behind an offshore company called Leiston Holdings.
Leiston was participating in footballers abroad through third party ownership (TPO).
This is where investors buy a portion of the future transfer value of a cash-strapped club footballer.
The practice was banned in the English Premier League in 2008, but not internationally until 2015.
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Andre Carrillo at Stamford Bridge in 2014 – played Chelsea in two games
Chelsea faced Sporting Lisbon in the group stage of the Champions League in 2014.
And Carrillo lined up Sporting in both games.
So at Lisbon in September and at Stamford Bridge in December, Abramovich had an interest in 12 players on the court.
Lord Triesman told Panorama: “I don’t think it is possible for a football club owner to own players in other football clubs. That is precisely why third party ownership is prohibited.”
“It casts suspicion and a shadow on all football. In the documents that I have seen, I would have wanted, as president of the FA, to investigate them.
It comes as Abramovich appears to be making big investments in Chelsea again this year.
What links Roman Abramovich to the offshore company?
In December 2016, a bank filed a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) on Mr. Abramovich.
It identified more than $ 1 billion of “suspicious payments involving shell companies abroad,” firms that function only to manage the money invested in them.
The SAR said many of the shell companies were “owned by Roman Abramovich … one of Russia’s most powerful oligarchs with close ties to Moscow and Vladimir Putin.”
Money seemed to be circling between companies.
Among the transactions were a series of nine payments from a Cypriot company. This money was divided among four other companies before $ 156 million ended up at Leiston Holdings.
Leiston became the subject of public attention in 2018, when the German website Der Spiegel revealed that, as part of the Football Leaks investigation, it was an investment vehicle for TPO.
Panorama found that both the Cyprus company and Leiston Holdings are Roman Abramovich companies.
In addition to being financed with $ 156 million of their money, Chelsea had the first option to sign some of the Leiston players.
Was there a conflict of interest?
In 2011, Leiston Holdings secured 50% of Andre Carrillo’s “economic rights” when he loaned Sporting 1 million euros (about £ 850,000) to help them buy the Alianza Lima player.
The financial agreement contained a series of clauses, as was common in TPO agreements.
He said that if a transfer offer of more than 6 million euros was made by Carrillo and Sporting Lisbon did not accept it, they would have to pay Leiston 45% of the value of the offer.
And Sporting agreed to pay Leiston a “risk fee” of more than € 127,000 for each season Carrillo played for the club.
The accounts of the Portuguese club showed that it owed Leiston 2.6 million euros in 2014-15.
Leiston also had stakes in two other Sporting players: Gael Etock, who played for the club between 2012 and 2013, and Valentim Viola, who was with the team between 2012 and 2016.
‘No misdeeds’
Former England and Liverpool forward John Barnes told Panorama that while third-party ownership couldn’t really influence what happens on the pitch, it was important that players had an identity and loyalty to the club they played for and His Followers.
“From a moral point of view and from the point of view of the integrity of the sport, when you sign with a club, your integrity and your loyalty must be with that club 100%.”
Abramovich’s spokeswoman said: “The fact that the transactions may have been confidential does not mean that they were illegal or that they violated applicable rules or regulations.”
She said they “relate to the period before FIFA changed its rules.”
The spokeswoman added that suspicious activity reports do not mean that laws or rules have been violated, and said: “The fact that we are not aware of this issue confirms that there have been no irregularities as no action was taken.”
Who is Roman Abramovich?
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- One of the richest people in Russia, with Forbes estimating his net worth in 2019 at $ 12.9 billion
- He is said to have sold dolls before making his fortune in oil and gas after the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
- Business partner of the late tycoon Boris Berezovky, partner of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin
- He served as governor of the Russian region of Chukotka.
- Believed to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin
- He became the owner of the companies that control Chelsea in 2003
- He reportedly withdrew his application to extend his UK investor visa, which allowed him to reside in Britain, in 2018.
- You now have Israeli citizenship
FinCen Files is a secret document leak. They have revealed how the big banks have allowed dirty money to move around the world. They also show how the UK is often the weak link in the financial system and how London is awash in Russian cash.
The files were obtained by BuzzFeed News, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and 400 journalists from around the world. Panorama has conducted research for the BBC.
FinCEN Archives: Full Coverage; follow the reaction on Twitter using #FinCENFiles; In the BBC News app, follow the tag “FinCEN Files; Watch Panorama on BBC iPlayer (UK viewers only).
