re: Manchester City 'hid' £30m from UEFA FFP investigators. Football leaks going crazy

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Behind closed doors, they began looking for "creative solutions" to circumvent the rules, resulting in the launch of a secret project with the rather military-esque name "Project Longbow." In explaining the name, the club's chief legal adviser, Simon Cliff, noted in an internal email that the longbow was "the weapon the English used to beat the French at Crecy and Agincourt." For Man City club leadership, the enemy was apparently Michel Platini, the French UEFA president, and his signature project, FFP.

Among club employees, Project Longbow would become synonymous over the next several years with the battle against Financial Fair Play. Under Soriano's leadership, Man City established "a central model" that "allows for many of the operational costs to be shifted either fully or partially away from the club."

It is a telling window into the team's approach: High costs and losses are fine as long as they can be hidden from UEFA. To help do so, Manchester City established a subsidiary to take care of a share -- and the costs -- of some standard business activities.

For example, the club transferred the marketing rights for its players to an external company. Normally, professional teams have to pay their athletes for the right to use them in club marketing material. But City drummed up buyers for those marketing rights -- an ingenious plan. Suddenly, the club no longer had to pay the marketing fees -- the new buyers did, resulting in spending cuts for Man City. Furthermore, the sale of the marketing rights generated additional revenues for the club to present to UEFA investigators: almost 30 million euros in this case. The marketing company adopted the name Fordham Sports Management and it is "very material for our longbow target," City's chief financial officer, Jorge Chumillas, noted internally.

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Internal Manchester City documents shed light on the true nature of the deal. A concept paper shows that Fordham Sports Management is merely one element in a closed payment loop: Sheikh Mansour's holding company, Abu Dhabi United Group, transferred money to the Rowlands for the purchase of the marketing rights and to pay Man City's players for their marketing appearances. The money transfers were coordinated by Manchester City itself. Fordham, in other words, was merely a vehicle for hidden capital injections from Abu Dhabi.

Jonathan Rowland wanted additional confirmation of that. "We need to know that AD is fully behind it this is the most important thing," he wrote on April 4, 2013, to Simon Pearce, a club executive and adviser to the Abu Dhabi ruling family. In response, Pearce sought to put Rowland's mind at ease and let him in on the plan: "Regarding the ongoing operating costs, every year we will send in advance the cash of approximately 11 million." The "we" in this case is the holding company that Sheikh Mansour had used to buy Manchester City: Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG). "I have ended up as the de facto MD (managing director) for ADUG," Pearce joked in one email to colleagues.

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A club director was controlling the expenditures of the club owner's holding company, money that would travel around the world before landing in the team's coffers. His boss, Man City Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak from Abu Dhabi, with tight links to the ruling family, gave his blessing to the payments.

Neither David nor Jonathan Rowland commented on the Fordham deal when contacted by journalists with European Investigative Collaborations network.

In the first year that the new FFP rules were in effect, UEFA's Investigatory Chamber examined Manchester City's numbers. Once auditors had pored over documents filed by the club, UEFA found that Man City was in violation of Financial Fair Play. The club responded with indignance and threatened to sue UEFA, the auditors and others involved in the finding. Ultimately, the team managed to hammer out a deal with UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino that achieved one primary goal: avoiding anything that might hurt Manchester City.

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I’m a big fan of Chelsea having their players set up offshore accounts

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