Monaco’s home win may prove taxing

In this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes, wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1789 but evidently he had not envisaged the ingenuity of French football.

For most of the past year French football has been at loggerheads with the government over the planned 75% tax on players’ wages and with one of its leading clubs, AS Monaco, over their tax-free status.

The French league, the LFP, threatened to expel the club unless it complied with its regulations and moved its headquarters to French jurisdiction by next June. Monaco’s response was to go to the courts. On Friday the long-running drama, some would say farce, produced yet another twist with the announcement that Monaco would be keeping their headquarters in Monte Carlo, and thus retain their tax-free status, but would hand over €50m to the LFP as a “one-off voluntary contribution” to league funds.