Criminals using football for money laundering and tax evasion, report finds

CRIMINALS are increasingly using football for money laundering and tax evasion, helped by the globalisation of the sport and financial needs of clubs, an anti-corruption body said yesterday.

The world’s most popular sport is attracting criminals with its huge cross-border money transfers and often obscure accounting methods, a unit of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report.

“Football clubs are indeed seen by criminals as the perfect vehicles for money laundering,” the OECD’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said.