Manchester City are facing fresh allegations that they circumvented Uefa’s financial fair play (FFP) rules – with claims the club saved millions by secretly setting up a shell company to pay players for their image rights. The operation, allegedly called Project Longbow by club insiders, allowed them to save €30m (£26.1m) in marketing income, according to Der Spiegel.
The German magazine has promised to focus on City throughout the week and Tuesday’s reports suggest that City understood from an early stage that the FFP rules being introduced by the then Uefa president Michel Platini would affect their chances of becoming one of the biggest clubs in Europe. According to a leaked memo from the club’s CEO, Ferran Soriano, the club decided that they needed to fight financial fair play but “do it in a way that is not visible, or we will be pointed out as the global enemies of football”.
Der Spiegel claims one of City’s solutions to circumvent the rules was to launch Project Longbow. In explaining the name, the club’s chief legal adviser, Simon Cliff, allegedly noted in an internal email that the longbow was “the weapon the English used to beat the French at Crécy and Agincourt” – the implication being that Platini, a Frenchman, and his brainchild were the enemy.
The scheme is said to have involved a shell company called Fordham Sports Management being set up. Usually clubs pay players for their image rights. In City’s case, however, Fordham Sports Management is alleged to have done so – with City’s Abu Dhabi owner reimbursing Fordham directly to the tune of £11m a year. According to Der Spiegel, the deal was a “closed payment loop”, which allowed Manchester City to hide the expenditure. The Guardian has not seen or been able to verify the documents Der Spiegel has used in its reporting.
The latest revelations follow on from Monday’s claims that the City owner, Sheikh Mansour, paid large parts of inflated sponsorship deals himself to circumvent FFP rules. In one case, documents from City’s chief financial officer, Jorge Chumillas, appear to show the Abu Dhabi United Group, Mansour’s holding company which also owns City, directly paid £59.5m of Etihad’s annual sponsorship, with only £8m coming from the airline.
However, a spokesperson for Etihad has claimed the airline was the real source of the money it paid to City. “The airline’s financial obligations, associated with the partnership of the club and the broader City Football Group, have always been, and remain, the sole liability and responsibility of Etihad Airways,” the club said in a statement to the Press Association.
“This is reflected in the airline’s audited accounts. Our partnership with Manchester City and the broader City Football Group continues to deliver important ongoing and accumulative returns on our investments.”
Despite City’s denials there have been growing calls for Uefa to investigate possible wrongdoing, including from the Spanish league. On Tuesday a La Liga spokesman told the Times: “Uefa should now take action and apply the rules that exist and any sanctions that are necessary.
“Uefa should do its job in terms of enforcing FFP because, as we have said before, both Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain are not complying with FFP rules.”
City were initially handed a £49m fine for FFP breaches in 2014 but were given back £33.4m of that three years later after meeting the requirements of the sanctions initially imposed on them. Gianni Infantino, the Fifa president, was alleged at the weekend to have struck a secret deal with the club when he was at Uefa which meant they avoided a Champions League ban.
City have yet to comment on the latest accusations but on Monday they repeated the statement they issued last week, defending their position and referring to “out of context materials purportedly hacked or stolen from City Football Group and Manchester City personnel and associated people”.
When asked about the accusations, the manager Pep Guardiola insisted that City had always tried to do things the right way. “We want to follow the rules, but I’m a manager, I don’t know what happened,” he added. “All I know is that we are not the only club to spend a lot of money, if you want to achieve another level that is what you have to do. When I was in Spain and Germany you would always hear that Manchester City was just about money, now I am on the inside I know something different. Everyone here is very professional and they try to do things in the right way.”