The London offices of the giant international sports rights company IMG and the agency co-founded by the new owner of Leeds United football club have been raided by officials from the European commission investigating potential sports rights cartels, the Guardian has learned.
European investigators entered the offices of IMG and MP & Silva on 10 April as part of a series of raids timed simultaneously including at the 21st Century Fox subsidiary Fox Networks Group, which is based in Hammersmith, west London, and Ziggo Sport, the Dutch subsidiary owned by Vodafone and Virgin Media parent Liberty Global.
IMG, one of the most venerable and prestigious sports rights and management agencies in the world, handles rights including Wimbledon, the ATP Tennis Tour as well as production of Premier League matches in some international markets.
“IMG Media was the subject of an on-site inspection by the European commission,” said a spokesman for IMG. “We are co-operating with the EC and no further comment will be made at this time.”
MP & Silva, which has sold TV rights including the Premier League in the Middle East and Italy’s top flight football league Serie A to broadcasters around the world, was co-founded by new Leeds United owner Andrea Radrizzani.
The 42-year-old, who bought the club last year, made a fortune from a $1bn (£710m) sale of a 65% stake in MP & Silva in 2016.
Radrizzani, who was chief executive of MP & Silva until 2014, retains the nominal title of vice-chairman but is understood to no longer be involved in the day-to-day running of the business. However, he does retain a minority stake in MP & Silva, which has 20 offices worldwide and a turnover of more than $600m.
The EC’s string of “unannounced inspections”, which are understood to also include the Mayfair office in London of a second international sports rights firm, B4 Capital, relate to the alleged abuse of “antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices” in the sports rights market.
The raid on the offices of MP & Silva and B4 Capital may be linked to the sale of Serie A broadcast rights.
Last year, Italy’s anti-trust body, AGCM, launched an investigation over alleged collusion between the two sports rights agencies and IMG over the sale of international broadcast rights to Serie A.
The AGCM said that it “suspected that the intermediaries have, since 2009, put in place behaviour that would alter the outcome of the proceedings initiated by Lega Serie A for the allocation of TV rights to view football competitions in territories other than Italy”. The companies’ offices in Italy were raided by the Italian regulator.
The European commission has not specified which sports rights deals it is investigating. It said that the raids do not mean that the companies involved are guilty.
“Unannounced inspections are a preliminary step into suspected anticompetitive practices,” said the commission. “The fact that the commission carries out such inspections does not mean that the companies are guilty of anti-competitive behaviour nor does it prejudge the outcome of the investigation itself.”
MP & Silva declined to comment. B4 Capital did not respond to a request for comment.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority aided the European officials in their UK raids.
There is no legal deadline to complete inquiries into anticompetitive conduct, but such investigations can typically take up to two years.
