Tax fraud in football: Premier League clubs face points loss and Euro KO if they are found to have broken tax or competition rules

PREMIER LEAGUE clubs face points deductions and expulsion from European competition if they are implicated in football’s latest financial scandal.

The Football Leaks consortium claims to have evidence that clubs around the world have made secret payments to players to get around tax or competition rules.

Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho, Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo and Arsenal ace Mesut Ozil have all been accused of tax avoidance.

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Uefa said: “Non compliance with Financial Fair Play rules can ultimately lead to exclusion from Uefa club competitions, although there is a range of less severe sanctions as well.

"Regarding payments made by clubs to players, Uefa expects them to be disclosed in a truthful and transparent manner since they are a key element of FFP monitoring.

"Uefa club licensing rules also require that clubs should not have outstanding payments to social and tax authorities as a condition of obtaining a Uefa license."

The Premier League’s own FFP rules, introduced in 2013, include restrictions on losses and wage rises.

At the time, executive chairman Richard Scudamore insisted the Prem would push for “the ultimate sanction — a points deduction” for serious breaches.

Sections T.13 and T.20 of the league’s rulebook require full disclosure of all contractual payments to players, including image rights deals.

Section W.54 lays out the range of punishments a disciplinary commission can hand down, including points deductions and even expulsion from the league.

There is a precedent for our football chiefs taking strong action over illicit payments.

Swindon earned promotion to the top flight in 1990 but were relegated two divisions, reduced to one on appeal, for doing under-the-counter deals with players.

Earlier this year, Mourinho paid £1.6million in back tax and fines in Spain. And according to FL, he reached a separate settlement worth more than £3m in June 2015.

He is accused of moving his millions across THREE continents in a bid to cut his tax bill.

During Mourinho’s first spell at Chelsea and his reign at Real, it is alleged the money he earned from sponsors and image rights deals was controlled by a mysterious trust based more than 11,000 miles away in Auckland.

Football and its finances form a complex web — and super-agent Jorge Mendes, the man behind both Ronaldo and Mourinho, is often at the centre of it.

Mendes and his agency Gestifute have furiously denied any wrongdoing by themselves or by any of their clients.

Mourinho and Ronaldo say that Gestifute is “fully compliant” with Spanish and British tax laws and neither man has ever been involved in legal proceedings relating to a tax offence.

But, according to FL, Mourinho’s money trail was very long indeed from the time he first joined Chelsea in 2004.

Income from his growing portfolio of sponsors allegedly went first to Dublin, to a firm called Multi-Sports Image Management and then to a second, Polaris.

Those firms then passed on the cash, minus commissions, to a shell company in Tortola, BVI, called Koper Services.

The same firm, whose bank account was in Switzerland, allegedly received image rights payments directly from Chelsea and Real, who are not accused of any wrongdoing. Mourinho was not, it is said, listed as a director at any of the companies.

Koper was in turn controlled by Kaitaia Trust, formed in Auckland in 2008. The beneficiaries of the trust were allegedly listed as “Mourinho’s current wife and his children”. Another document is said to state that, as of December 31, 2013, Kaitaia owed Mourinho nearly £10m.

Spanish authorities are investigating Ronaldo’s money trail — amid claims from Football Leaks that more than £120m of his earnings were funnelled through a tax haven.

The people behind FL reckon more than £120m related to the Real Madrid star’s commercial deals and image rights have passed through the British Virgin Islands since 2009.

From 2009-14, it is said, a total of about £60m went to the same Dublin companies as Mourinho’s money, MIM and Polaris.

The cash then moved to Tollin Associates in Tortola. FL claim only the 2014 Tollin income was declared to Spanish authorities.

In late December 2014, Ronaldo’s image rights for 2015-2020 were sold in advance for £58.5m to two other BVI firms — Arnel, which would control the player’s Spanish ventures, and Adifore, for the rest of the world.

Interestingly, the buyer turned out to be Peter Lim, the Singapore billionaire who owns Valencia and half of Salford City, the up-and-coming club which also numbers Gary Neville and other Old Trafford Class of ’92 legends among its backers.

But for tax reasons, the timing of the deal is more significant than the purchaser’s identity. On January 1, 2015, Ron and other foreign players in Spain were going to lose the tax breaks and other benefits — including not having to pay any tax on overseas marketing income — granted to them by the so-called Beckham Law.

A few days later, say FL, the £58.5m was paid into an account at the Geneva private bank Mirabaud & Cie.

An article in German magazine Der Spiegel, based on the FL documents, quotes a tax expert saying Ronaldo should not have been allowed to declare in 2014 future income from 2015-2020 for tax purposes.

Jose Enrique Fernandez de Moya, the secretary of state for finance, said: “The information held by the Ministry of Finance corresponds with what was published by the media.”