Bribery and corruption has always been rife in football, however, at the start of this century, the public perception was that these activities were limited. Seemingly, there were a handful of unscrupulous characters at the top of the game; the shifty player and their crooked agents on one side, and the manager on the other. All that stood between them was the unmarked notes in the brown paper envelope. Some people knew, but nobody cared; after all, with so much challah left on the table everyone could still make Hamotzi. The real losers were the clubs themselves, who were happy to look the other way, as of course did the FA. It was mainly isolated and shielded by a conspiracy of silence from those within the game.
In 2006, the public were given a first glance at just how entrenched and widespread bribery had become when the BBC Panorama documentary, entitled ‘Undercover: Football’s Dirty Secrets’, was aired. The footage showed meetings between a number of agents, managers and high ranking officials, accepting backhanders and tapping up players already subject to contract. It was a damning indictment on the modern era of football. The resulting public outcry led to an enquiry headed by Lord Stevens, former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and former head of an enquiry into corruption in cricket, which examined the extent of the corruption. In 2007, his subsequent report ‘Corruption in Football’ identified seventeen suspicious player transfers, culminating in the arrest of a number of high-profile individuals. The beautiful game showed its morning face. Due to the complexities of the law and evidential shortcomings, however, not a single criminal prosecution followed and despite the FA’s apparent ‘zero tolerance’ policy on corruption, their lack of any meaningful activities showed their continued state of inertia. It seemed that the offenders could acquire their ill-gotten gains under complete impunity.
The situation deteriorated further, with all levels of the game being infiltrated and extending much further than a few individuals, from the overseas betting syndicates manipulating lucrative and unregulated betting markets, to officials of national organisations taking bungs for votes. These activities were hard to detect and impossible to prove.
The Bribery Act 2010, in force since 2011, may provide the necessary remedies. The Act deals with those who offer and receive bribes, creates a strict liability to prevent bribery e.g. a positive duty for the clubs to self-report any misdealing by associated third parties (i.e. agents), and requires those clubs to have adequate procedures to prevent such activities, with draconian punishments including limitless fines and even imprisonment for the clubs for failing to adhere to these regulations. The overall aim is to limit the widespread corruption in football but the Act has had far-reaching implications for corporate entities outside the world of football, including those who ‘match-fix’ and who have interests in lucrative sponsorship deals.
It is ambitious that an industry defined by its secrecy on financial affairs will be radically transformed into one of transparency. The issue will not lie with the interpretation of the regulations themselves, but with their enforcement by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), and only a high profile prosecution will show this Act has any teeth. The signs so far are not encouraging. Although the Act is in its infancy, there has not yet been a single case of football corruption and only a handful of cases prosecuted under the Act. The SFO claim that there are pending prosecutions in the pipeline for 2014 but whether these materialise remains to be seen.
We at Lewis Nedas Law have specialist lawyers dealing with corporate crime (including bribery and corruption, money laundering, tax/VAT offences), and we have been instructed in the first prosecution by the SFO under the Bribery Act 2010.
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