Revealing insight into how money is tarnishing football

WHAT WOULD you do if you won the Lotto? Not the Irish one; that has been engulfed in lustre in recent years and really, how long would that three or four million last you? No, what would you do if you won the life-changer, the Euromillions jackpot?

The biggest ever single winners in the continent’s largest independent lottery have pocketed a whopping €190 million each.

It’s enough to pretty much live any dream that you may have had; click your fingers and off you go, follow your wildest dreams.

However, maybe you’re a bit of a strange fish, and maybe you woke up in a sweat, snapping the dream that had you knee deep in the heart of Paris, trying your best to strike a deal to bring Neymar to Ferrycarrig Park.

But what woke you up? Was it the fact that you realised that the €190 million you won by picking the five numbers and the two lucky stars correctly wasn’t enough to get Neymar to Wexford, that PSG wanted to recoup the €222 million he cost them from Barcelona, and you were a mere €32 million short?

Oh well, you can settle for Pogba for a mere €105 million, a bargain price in comparison. However, what might make you flinch in your chase of the Manchester

United man are the hidden costs in his transfer.

When Juventus sold Pogba to the

English Premier League club, the player’s agent, Mino Raiola, and his organisations managed to pocket an eye-watering €49 million from the deal. He sucked money from both clubs to complete the deal, as well from the player himself.

These stunning sums of money seeping out of the beautiful game are dealt with in great, and jaw-dropping, detail in an excellent new publication by German journalists Rafael Buschmann and Michael Wulzinger, simply called ‘Football Leaks’.

Before joining forces with the authors, ‘Football Leaks’ was a website originally set up by a whistleblower referred to throughout this publication by the name ‘John’.

This international man of mystery used many an internet trick to keep his identity hidden, all the while uploading a multitude of documents pertaining to dodgy dealings in football.

The documents are all encompassing. They point the finger at the agents ripping millions out of the sport, and they delve into transfer fees released by clubs and show how they were actually often much higher than the public are led to believe.

‘John’s’ documents also point the suspicious finger at footballers and their ability to funnel money, especially received from image rights, into offshore tax havens.

‘Football Leaks’ did to top earning players what the Panama and Paradise Papers did to many outside of sport.

Stepping away from the reams of interesting content, the book is superbly written. It flows well, as the authors mix stories of different players, agents and clubs in with a chronological account of their dealings with ‘John’.

This is one of the more interesting sports books released in recent years. If you love sport but despise how money and wealth has tarnished the purity of the games you have followed since you were a kid, then this book is for you. It might give you a small bit of hope for the future.

Even if you are just a casual fan, if you just flick on a sporting event without giving the background much thought and want to be entertained, then you can still appreciate the work and information squeezed into the fascinating ‘Football Leaks’.

DEAN GOODISON

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