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The anti-money laundering cyclone is about to hit planet football. One of the most competitive sectors in theentertainment EU-branded – the five major leagues live in the Old Continent, the UEFA competitions are the most followed in the world – in fact ends up within the Anti-Money Laundering Regulation, approved last Tuesday as a legislative resolution by the Strasbourg Plenary.
This is a regulatory arm – autonomous, mandatory for all 27 member countries and self-implementing within the next 36 months – of the sixth AML directive (anti money launderinged.), voted at the same time by the EU Parliament, and which, like this, awaits scrutiny by the Council, before publication in the European Journal.
«Opaque» football system
Both measures were created with the aim of closing the (numerous) gaps still open to international flows of dirty money; but it is the regulation that focuses, more directly, on the new targets. The football professional is the main one of these because, writes the legislator in the introduction, there are urgent reasons to do so «such as the global popularity of football, the considerable amounts, the cash flows and financial interests involved, the prevalence of cross-border operations and, sometimes, opaque ownership structures.”
Focus on sales, financing, sponsors
In the sights of the anti-money laundering authorities – from Financial intelligence unit to the new authority Amla up to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office Eppo – all operations which have as their object the purchase and sale of footballers, the financing of professional football clubs, the sponsorships that they receive and all operations with football agents or other intermediaries end.
The intervention scheme is the classic one of anti-money laundering, i.e. a control at the origin of the financial flows, placed by law in the hands of the “obliged parties” required to monitor, verify and, in suspected cases, abstain from the operation and report to the AML authorities.
