Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft

Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft(newrepublic.com)

56 points by evilsimon 7 years ago | 48 comments

PhilWright 7 years ago |

Tax minimization schemes go through trends and fads just like any other area of creativity. When the accountants and lawyers come up with a scheme for one celebrity footballer, it is likely to get used again for others. Once it becomes common enough the government closes the loophole and the creatives go back to finding the next scheme.

Sometimes the court decides the scheme is illegal and then they go after all those that used it. Politically it looks good to grab money from millionaires that look like they were exploiting your system. I doubt the footballers know much, if anything, about the details of the schemes they are involved in. The accountant says 'leave to me, I can save you millions' and the footballer concentrates on playing.

bmer 7 years ago | |

> Once it becomes common enough the government closes the loophole and the creatives go back to finding the next scheme.

Creatives? Do you mean criminals. I do believe it is necessary to socially stigmatize the crime, if we do want to improve things. Pedophiles can be creative, but we do not go around saying "then, the creatives find a new to continue distributing child porn". (Extreme example chosen on purpose.)

> Politically it looks good to grab money from millionaires that look like they were exploiting your system.

Sure, or maybe it actually is good, because you get funds to use for public projects?

open-source-ux 7 years ago |

You can watch an excellent summary about Ronaldo and Messi's tax fines in this short video from Tifo Football published today:

Ronaldo & Messi's Tax Fines & Suspended Prison Sentences Explained:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP5vuflIdrQ

In fact, Tifo Football on YouTube is one of the best sources of news, information and analysis on football (soccer) - regardless of whether you like football or not. The quality is excellent:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGYYNGmyhZ_kwBF_lqqXdAQ/vid...

r32a_ 7 years ago | |

TIFO football is fantastic, they really go underneath the game and show that Football is not just a game but a branch of international Politics and finance.

mikeyouse 7 years ago | |

Relatedly -- The Football Leaks series by a number of large journalism outfits in Europe are illuminating. My favorite set is about Doyen, a Turkish group hiding their illegal ownership in a number of players who happen to be founded by one of the people implicated in Trump's failed Trump SoHo project (Tevkik Arif). We don't do nearly enough to stop and punish white collar crime:

https://theblacksea.eu/stories/football-leaks/football-leaks...

MordodeMaru 7 years ago |

It boils down again and again to how elites in general can avoid taxation anywhere by being everywhere. Related:

https://twitter.com/rcbregman/status/1088793422113185794?s=2...

superkuh 7 years ago |

This is just a result of the culture in the areas where soccer is most popular. Most notably, south america, where the sneaky underdog grifter that defrauds others is almost a cultural icon and hero rather than a scoundrel.

estebank 7 years ago | |

If you're interested in seeing the prevalent philosophy in these places, watch "Nueve Reinas (2000)".

pitt1980 7 years ago |

Interesting that Messi had tax problems in Spain as well.

Neither of these guys are filling out their own taxes.

Why did their accountants think it was a good idea to complete their taxes in a way that wound up getting them in trouble?

Or why did Spain think these guys were alluring targets to spend finite prosecutorial resources on?

pjc50 7 years ago | |

The answer to both questions is surely "several million dollars"?

This stuff happens a lot. Celebrities don't make money through a business front nor do they get to class it as capital gains. It's all "income", so the incentive to turn it into a cheaper tax category or hide it offshore is huge.

See also the Glasgow Rangers collapse due to tax fraud.

rtpg 7 years ago | | |

I'm sure celebrities can easily package their offerings as an LLC or the like. It's just that then you can't spend it however you like.

You want to spend your money however you like? That's income. "They can't play tax tricks to avoid income tax" is the system working, not a bug

pitt1980 7 years ago | | |

I would think protecting their image for endorsement potential is worth more than even millions of dollars of tax savings

charlesdm 7 years ago | |

The problem is likely that they have no leverage. If they were a company owner employing hundreds or thousands of people, with the power to fire them all and relocate, I'm not sure they would see the same outcome.

One must remember that (cross-border) tax law is highly ambiguous. Since you can arrange your own affairs in the most tax efficient way, everyone always tries to get a beneficial outcome. If you add an international component to that, you'll quickly end up in situations where there often is no clear right or wrong answer because tax systems don't look at certain things in the same way.

Spain isn't the best place to live if you have money, in particular due to the wealth tax.

anitil 7 years ago | |

I can't find the episode, but Planet Money had an episode where they found the US tax department made a deliberate target of celebrities, with the expectation that public prosecution of these people (think Martha Stewart) would result in higher tax compliance. This makes them a better ROI than your local greengrocer.

MordodeMaru 7 years ago | |

Spain, or its tax agency cannot cover (or will not cover) all fraud areas. It will creat FUDs with big cases to have everyone in line from that moment on, but it is really difficult also to cover all ground.

pylus 7 years ago | |

Mourinho (a famous coach) too.

benj111 7 years ago |

Off topic but

"Rui Pinto, a Portuguese national"

Now I remember doing a case study on the Ford Pinto in South America, Pinto translates into a rude word in Portugese doesn't it???

Is it like Dick (Richard) in English. Or am I missing some subtlety here.

Edit: Link for Translation http://www.youswear.com/sitemap.asp?language=Portuguese+(bra...

lfarroco 7 years ago | |

Yes, you are right! Pinto is a very common surname that can also mean "dick". When used in this context it does not call a lot of attention - but it would be unthinkable to call a product "Pinto"

henriquemaia 7 years ago | | |

In Brazil only. In Portugal it's just the name of the little chicks (chicken after they hatch).

benj111 7 years ago | | |

Thanks.

I wonder if the slang is a transliteration from one language to the other, or it's just coincidence.

FlorianRappl 7 years ago |

What I always find interesting is that if a professional soccer player is caught only a (in absolute terms) substantial amount of money is fined, while "ordinary" people would certainly go behind bars in addition to paying the money. The 23 months seems to be quite a joke to insult the intellect of these ordinary citizens.

icebraining 7 years ago | |

Which ordinary person in Spain has gone behind bars for their first time offense of tax evasion?

onetimemanytime 7 years ago |

So under 2 years no jail for first time offenders and he was conditionally sentenced to 23 months :)? A lot of these guys might not understand the laws, lawyers suggest ways to "pay less taxes" and "John did it too" and it's done. Their taxes aren't as simple as entering the W2 info on a web form.

r32a_ 7 years ago |

Football hasn't been about the game for a long time but a branch of International politics and finance.

shellac 7 years ago |

In this article ‘graft’ means corruption or similar, rather than ‘hard work’. Slightly confusing.