Playing fair

Football — the international sport, with strikers and goalkeepers — is beloved around the world, but in an intense game where professional teams compete for wins and financial survival, fraud is commonplace. Here’s a primer on the many schemes on and off the field and meaningful steps that football clubs and leagues could take to fight fraud in the sport.

During the 2021-2022 season, Manchester City Football Club (F.C.) had an audience of 786 million viewers and won its sixth title in England’s highest division, the Premier League. Since it came under new ownership in 2008, the club has won 17 trophies. But a dramatic announcement last year is now threatening the F.C.’s newfound success. In 2023, the Premier League charged Manchester City with 115 counts of breaching Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules that require football clubs to provide accurate information about their financial positions. The reported violations, which allegedly occurred between 2009 and 2018, include failure to provide accurate reports on player and manager compensation. The case goes to trial this fall, and Manchester City is facing dire repercussions — the team could find itself relegated (demoted) to a low-level league. (See “Manchester City Annual Report 2022-23;” “Manchester City charged with breaking financial rules by Premier League,” by Katie Falkingham, BBC, Feb. 6, 2023; and “Full list of FFP charges against Manchester City,” by Graeme Bell, GIVEMESPORT, Jan. 16, 2024.)

Manchester City is only one of many football clubs around the world grappling with fraud. Numerous scandals throughout the years — including the international organization FIFA’s own history of scandal — continue to raise concerns about the integrity of the game. But there are measures that football organizations can take to address fraud in their teams and ensure a fair playing field for athletes and fans alike. (See “Fifa corruption crisis: Key questions answered,” BBC News, Dec. 21, 2015.)

Schemes abound

About 3.5 billion fans worldwide cheer for their favorite football (aka soccer in the U.S.) teams and players, from local clubs to national squads. FIFA, the Switzerland-based world governing body for football, generated $7.6 billion in revenue between 2019 and 2022, and football associations, clubs and the players themselves earn fortunes through events, sponsorships, TV contracts, and licensing and merchandise deals. Like any other business, fraud is never far afield when vast amounts of money are in play. (See “Most Popular Sport by Country 2024,” World Population Review and “FIFA Council highlights record breaking revenue in football,” FIFA, Feb. 14, 2023.) Indeed, fraud examiners are well familiar with FIFA’s corruption scandal that saw dozens of its high-ranking officials accused of taking bribes connected to World Cup hosting rights for Russia and Qatar.

But schemes in the world’s most popular sport don’t stop at corruption. Financial statement fraud and asset misappropriation schemes are rife in football, and football players and fans often fall victim to investment fraud and ticket fraud, among other schemes.

Corruption schemes

Although bribery is a prevalent form of corruption in football, other instances of corruption include favoritism (referees showing bias towards individuals or teams based on personal relationships, affiliations or other non-merit-based criteria), price fixing, conflicts of interest and extortion. Football clubs might bribe referees with expensive watches, vacations and dates, or work with criminals to defraud bookmakers. Club owners have bribed club or league officials to install referees who made favorable calls for teams during matches. (See “Fraud in Football: Research into how well football protects itself against fraud,” by Graham Brooks and Mark Button, PKF LLP, and University of Portsmouth, 2011.)

In Australian football, illegal payments to players have often occurred, and in the past, champion footballers have taken bribes to “play dead” — intentionally falling to the ground and feigning injury or exaggerating the impact of a challenge to deceive the referee or gain an advantage for their team. (See “‘Playing Dead’ and Killing Off Amateurism: Bribery Scandals, Illegal Player Payments, Rule Expunging, and the Victorian Football League’s Authorization of Professionalism in 1911,” by Tony Joel, Mathew Turner and Col Hutchinson, The International Journal of the History of Sport, July 18, 2018.) And as I wrote in a 2023 paper published in the academic journal, Deviant Behavior, match fixing — conspiring to manipulate a game’s outcome — isn’t uncommon in Finland, Romania, Malta, Greece and Belgium. (See “Understanding and Mitigating Fraud Risk in Professional Football.”)

When referees play favorites, they allow teams’ levels of success to influence their decisions to assign penalties. In the case of the Norwegian Premier League, referees are more likely to assign incorrect penalties to successful teams compared to their less-successful opponents. In England, referees award significantly more yellow and red cards denoting the severity of penalties against players for fouls to their opponents; referees give significantly fewer yellow cards and total booking points to top team players in Italy, Germany and Spain. (See “Referee Bias in Professional Football: Favoritism Toward Successful Teams in Potential Penalty Situations,” by Martin Kjeøen Erikstad and Bjørn Tore Johansen, Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, Feb. 27, 2020 and “Strongest Team Favoritism in European National Football: Myth or Reality?” by Francesco Audrino, West Virginia University/Fit Publishing, 2015.)

Conflicts of interest take various forms. In one infamous example, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi owned Italy’s largest and most successful club, AC Milan, and Italy’s largest media company, Mediaset. Using his political power, Berlusconi reduced the requirements for football clubs’ financial transparency, regulation and licensing. (See “The governance and regulation of Italian football,” by Sean Hamil, Stephen Morrow, Catharine Idle, Giambattista Rossi and Stefano Faccendini, Soccer & Society, July 27, 2010.) Football team doctors and clinicians also get into the game of corruption related to conflicts of interest when they submit false medical records for footballers to continue playing after injuries.

And extortion schemes aren’t unheard of: FIFA allegedly abused its monopoly to extract concessions from countries that favor its interests. In another example, Sicilian crime syndicate Cosa Nostra allegedly extorted Palermo football clubs through threats and intimidation to maintain its power in the region. (See “Trust, Conflicts of Interest, and Concussion Reporting in College Football Players,” by Christine M. Baugh, Emily Kroshus, William P. Meehan and Eric G. Campbell, Cambridge University Press, Jan. 1, 2021; “Protecting private transnational authority against public intervention: FIFA’s power over national governments,” by Henk Erik Meier and Borja García, Wiley Online Library, Sept. 17, 2015; and “There’s a long year to be spent. Cosa Nostra and football in Palermo,” by Vincenzo Scalia, Soccer & Society, Oct. 18, 2020.)

Asset misappropriation

The theft and abuse of an organization’s assets, or asset misappropriation, is the most common form of insider fraud, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ (ACFE) Occupational Fraud 2022: A Report to the Nations. As clubs consider football players their assets, here I consider subcategories of asset misappropriation schemes like payroll fraud and overbilling in football. Such examples include players who cheat on drug tests and clubs that breach salary cap agreements. Some players have purchased fake social media follower accounts to inflate their popularity and perceived value by an average of 6% or approximately 650,000 euros. And older, experienced players with youthful looks have entered age-specific tournaments for the edge in games. (See “Corruption in sport: From the playing field to the field of policy,” by Adam Masters, Oxford Academic, June 2015; “Online Popularity, Fake Followers and Soccer Players’ Value,” by Théo Marquis and Nicolas Soulié, SSRN, last revised May 10, 2022; and “A unique opportunity to use football to improve birth registration awareness and completeness in Nigeria,” by Olusesan Ayodeji Makinde, Clifford Obby Odimegwu and Funmilola M. OlaOlorun, British Journal of Sports Medicine, April 28, 2017.)

Norwegian football offers an example of the type of overbilling scheme that can occur in football. In one case, a club in the Norwegian league inflated a player’s transfer fees or included hidden costs to benefit one of the clubs involved in the transaction. There’s also evidence that Brazil’s Maracanã Stadium overbilled on renovations when it hosted the 2014 World Cup. (See “Characteristics of financial crime investigation reports by fraud examiners,” by Petter Gottschalk, Journal of Investment Compliance, Oct. 28, 2014 and “Benford’s law for audit of public works: an analysis of overpricing in Maracanã soccer arena’s renovation,” by Flavia C. Rodrigues da Cunha and Mauricio S. Bugarin, Economics Bulletin, 2015.)

Financial statement fraud

Tax fraud, and the manipulation of an organization’s financial records, such as ticket sales or player salaries, are examples of financial statement fraud in football. Football clubs competing in the Italian Series A from 2005 to 2018 manipulated their earnings due to trading players’ economic rights. [See “Football players and asset manipulation: the management of football transfers in Italian Serie A,” by Lorenzo Neri, Antonella Russo, Marco Di Domizio and Giambattista Rossi, European Sport Management Quarterly, June 10, 2021 and “Scandal+football=a better share price,” by Jason Mazanov, Gabriele Lo Tenero, James Connor and Keiran Sharpe, Sport, Business and Management, July 13, 2012.]

Defrauding players and fans

Imagine buying a ticket to see your favorite team play to a sellout crowd only to discover at the gate that the ticket is fake — something that happens frequently to fans. And sometimes fraudsters victimize professional football players, like when they collect cash payments for a player’s image rights without the player’s knowledge and consent. Individuals posing as financial professionals can also victimize players through investment fraud schemes. (See “Fraud in Football: Research into how well football protects itself against fraud” and “Can Forensic Accounting Experts Save Athletes From Becoming Fraud Victims?” by Richard G. Brody, Gaurav Gupta, Ryan Knight, David Byrne and Jerrold Colton, Journal of Forensic and Investigative Accounting, January-June 2022.)

There are troubling case studies and stories of fraudsters recruiting players for financial gain. Some low-income prospective players, many of them supporting families, sell their homes to meet professional club entry fees requested by fraudulent “entrepreneurs” who pretend to have connections with major clubs. The pervasiveness of this fraud resulted in homelessness for around 20,000 children in Europe, according to one study published in 2014. And in one case, fraudsters imported underage Nigerian players into Norway until they could be sold to English clubs. [See “Recruitment in elite football: a network approach,” by Daniel Parnell, Alexander John Bond, Paul Widdop, Ryan Groom and David Cockayne, European Sport Management Quarterly, Dec. 3, 2021 and “Requirements for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and Requirements of Governmental Bodies to Deter Financial Crimes in the Football Sector,” by F.M. De Sanctis, Southwestern Journal of International Law, 2014 21 (1):27–62.]

Enabling fraud in football

Motives, opportunities and a lack of integrity culture within FIFA and football clubs are critical antecedents to fraud. The following are some of the motives that drive bad actors to commit fraud in football.

Football clubs are torn between short-term sporting success and the overall long-term financial performance required by regulators at various organizations, such as FIFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and domestic football associations. Failing to regulate and manage finances adequately can devastate a club, pushing team managers to commit fraud to maintain its financial viability. (See “Potential agency problems in European club football? The case of UEFA Financial Fair Play,” by Mathias Schubert, Sport, Business and Management, Oct. 7, 2014.)

After Portsmouth became the first major English club to enter administration (like bankruptcy in the U.S.) in 2010, UEFA implemented the Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations in 2012. FFP requires clubs in UEFA-member states to financially break even and prevents them from spending more money than they generate. These regulations are the most restrictive interventions that European club football has ever seen and demand that clubs operate based on their football-related incomes alone. However, FFP imposes a level of financial stress on clubs that could fuel motivations to commit fraud to meet regulations. (See “Walk the Talk: Financial Fairness in EuropeanClub Football,” by Mathias Schubert and Francisco Javier Lopez Frias, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, Sept. 14, 2017.)

Clubs face constant pressure to remain financially viable and drive revenue, particularly from ticket sales and TV rights, with severe consequences from failure. The fear of insolvency, bankruptcy and financial distress could motivate football clubs to commit fraud. Even after FFP came into force, clubs’ financial situations deteriorated at an ever-increasing rate, with the level of aggregated debt of European football clubs reaching multimillion-euro figures and many of them on the verge of bankruptcy. And the financial state only worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. (See “Ownership structure and financial performance in European football,” by Isabel Acero, Raúl Serrano and Panagiotis Dimitropoulos, Corporate Governance, June 5, 2017 and “Too big to fail? Accounting for predictions of financial distressin English professional football clubs,” by Daniel Plumley, Jean-Philippe Serbera and Rob Wilson, Journal of Applied Accounting, Nov. 10, 2020.)

Given the stakes of the game, these financial pressures create the perfect conditions for match fixing. Managers often bear the brunt of backlash from the public and the media when a team’s performance is subpar, with the constant push for points and victories a motivating factor. A team’s failure or success on the pitch can determine fan engagement, which can also be a motive for fraud. Motivating factors for players, referees and team leaders include financial insecurity and low pay, poor working conditions and fear of “aging out” of the sport. Match fixing is also driven partly by the enormous financial stakes and the growing influence of betting companies. (See “Understanding and Mitigating Fraud Risk in Professional Football” and “Match-fixing: Football referees’ attitudes and experiences,” by Jonas Visschers, Letizia Paoli and Abhishek Deshpande, Crime, Law and Social Change, Dec. 21, 2019.)

Opportunities for fraud

Weaknesses in an organization’s controls and governance systems provide perfect opportunities for fraud, and football clubs’ standards of controls and governance are significantly below those of other public corporations. For example, there’s no institutional process under which FIFA’s president and executive committee can be held accountable for bad behavior. FIFA wields considerable power internationally and doesn’t directly answer to any country; and although it’s incorporated under Swiss law, Swiss authorities conducted very little supervision of FIFA until 2015. Indeed, FIFA can punish national governments that try to supervise their football federations by banning countries from qualifying for the World Cup, but the lack of accountability in football extends beyond FIFA. The rarity of fraud convictions only increases the motivation to commit fraud in football in many countries, including Poland, China and Argentina. (See “The Corporate Governance of Professional Football Clubs in England,” by Jonathan Michie and Christine Oughton, Corporate Governance: An International Review, June 29, 2005; “Bend it like FIFA: corruption on and off the pitch,” by Christopher John Boudreaux, Gokhan Karahan and Morris Coats, Managerial Finance, Sept. 12, 2016; and “Understanding and Mitigating Fraud Risk in Professional Football.”)

Football clubs often lack clear and effective anti-fraud and anti-bribery strategies. European clubs tend to have insider-dominated boards without independent executive directors, which results in little monitoring and creates plenty of opportunity for managers’ bias and fraudulent behavior. According to a recent U.K. government report, because of poor internal governance in some English football clubs, owners have made short-sighted, unilateral decisions with little scrutiny. Proposed reforms by the U.K.’s Minister for Sport would require clubs to follow a new code and report on how they’ve applied it. [See “Money Laundering through the Football Sector,” Financial Action Task Force, July 2009; “Anti-bribery and Corruption Policiesin International Sports Governing Bodies,” by Christina Philippou and Tony Hines, Frontiers Media, May 17, 2021; “Financial Performance and Corporate Governance in the European Football Industry,” by Panagiotis Dimitropoulos and Athanasios Tsagkanos, International Journal of Sport Finance, 2012; and “A sustainable future - reforming club football governance,” by Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Gov.UK, February 2023.]

Integrity issues

The culture created by top management — the tone at the top — is a critical component of an organization’s internal controls. In building strong integrity cultures, organizational leaders must walk the talk and lead by example. Although FIFA declared a zero-tolerance policy towards wrongdoing and a commitment to sound governance principles, its culture was wholly exposed as fraudulent when 26 top FIFA officials were arrested in Zurich and Miami in 2015. Additionally, there were allegations that a member of FIFA’s ethics committee received bribes from a member of the executive committee. Even when FIFA attempted to repair its image in the media, it relied heavily on a denial strategy to avoid responsibility when the corruption was purposeful. [See “Fifa corruption crisis: Key questions answered,” BBC News, Dec. 21, 2015; “Bend it like FIFA: corruption on and off the pitch,” by Christopher John Boudreaux, Gokhan Karahan and Morris Coats, Managerial Finance, Sept. 12, 2016; and “Managing the Reputation of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA): The case of the corruption crisis,” by Labiba Abdel Naby Ibrahim, Public Relations Journal, October 2017.]

Integrity issues at the organizational level in football extend beyond FIFA. Prosecutors in Italy accused the Juventus club in 2023 of secretly paying their players, despite announcing that they would be foregoing four months’ wages during the COVID pandemic. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 25 out of 40 players failed mandatory MRI age testing, causing it to pull out of the 2023 Under-17 African Cup of Nations. (See “Juventus: How and why the Italian giants are in another scandal threatening their future,” by Mina Rzouki, BBC, Jan. 26, 2023 and “Age fraud scandal rages on as DR Congo withdraw from the U17 Africa Cup of Nations after 25 out of 40 players FAILED MRI tests...,” by Kieran Lynch, Daily Mail, Jan. 12, 2023.)

A holistic approach to fighting football fraud

Effectively combating fraud in football requires a comprehensive strategy that seeks accountability, fosters integrity, allocates resources to anti-fraud measures and governance mechanisms, leverages technology for fraud detection, implements legislative reforms, and encourages national and international cooperation.

Fostering accountability and integrity

Accountability is crucial in stamping out fraud across industries, and professional football is no exception. One effective approach involves imposing stricter penalties, such as criminal prosecution instead of mere financial penalties to deter opportunities for fraudulent activities. Additionally, establishing a supervisory monitoring body, mandating officials to report suspicious transactions and promoting transparency in player transfers and club ownership are vital mechanisms to reinforce accountability. Additional anti-fraud measures include disclosing fraud-related activities in annual reports to raise public awareness about fraud, establishing a global integrity sports body that involves public participation and empowering FIFA’s ethics committee with enhanced authority and resources. (See “Understanding and Mitigating Fraud Risk in Professional Football.”)

Promoting integrity within an organization begins with strong leadership. If top management doesn’t communicate its concern for ethics, it creates an environment where employees feel safe to commit fraud. To establish an effective tone at the top, the management team must consistently communicate ethical values and promote appropriate behavior. Additionally, appointing influential and honest managers can contribute to fostering integrity. One potential solution is to appoint FIFA executives from countries with low levels of corruption. Research indicates that corruption is a learned behavior, and executives from countries with robust anti-corruption cultures might bring valuable perspectives and practices to organizations. (See “Bend it like FIFA: corruption on and off the pitch,” by Christopher John Boudreaux, Gokhan Karahan and Morris Coats, Managerial Finance, Sept. 12, 2016.)

Implementing mandatory employee fraud awareness training, establishing a secure and easily accessible whistleblowing process, and recognizing and rewarding integrity are other effective measures. When auditors and audit committees bring concerns to management, it’s crucial to respond promptly with corrective actions. Treating employees fairly and respectfully and providing them with fair compensation, manageable workloads and opportunities for advancement are also vital factors in maintaining ethical organizational cultures.

Every organization should develop an ethical code of conduct that strictly prohibits fraud. For football clubs, a code should clearly define what constitutes fraud, emphasize its negative impact, outline the consequences for engaging in fraudulent activities and encourage employees to report any instances of fraud through a reliable whistleblower protection mechanism. Implementing an anonymous fraud reporting mechanism with multiple reporting channels, such as telephone, email and web-based platforms, can significantly increase the likelihood of early fraud detection and minimize fraud losses. (See the ACFE’s Occupational Fraud 2022: A Report to the Nations.)

Invest in anti-fraud controls and good governance

Football clubs would greatly benefit from robust governance codes that provide top management with clear guidance on leading their organizations with integrity. These codes should emphasize the importance of combating fraud, promoting accountability and establishing strong internal controls.

It’s essential to support comprehensive fraud policies with anti-fraud education initiatives. Both FIFA and football clubs should allocate resources towards conducting fraud awareness campaigns that educate stakeholders about the nature of fraud in football and its impact. These campaigns should target players, officials and fans to raise awareness and foster a culture of integrity within the football community. Training programs, workshops and awareness campaigns can be pivotal in educating individuals about the risks and consequences of engaging in fraudulent activities. People who are well-informed are more likely to recognize and report suspicious incidents and cooperate with authorities in investigating and preventing fraud.

To protect football players against fraudulent investments, the European Union advises clubs to conduct background investigations, conflict-of-interest checks, and reference checks and use experienced, reputable, independent third parties to perform due diligence. (See “Athletes targeted by fraud: Almost $600 million in potential fraud identified between 2004 and 2018,” by Steve Spiegelhalter and Jesse Silvertown, EY, 2019.) Moreover, football clubs should appoint independent directors to their boards and governing bodies who can provide unbiased oversight and contribute to effective governance practices. These actions can act as deterrents and foster cultures of integrity within clubs. (See “Understanding and Mitigating Fraud Risk in Professional Football.”) When it comes to referees, leagues should appoint neutral umpires for all games and establish an independent panel to oversee the development and selection of umpires to contribute to fair play.

Swiss regulators, perhaps in cooperation with other national governments, international sports organizations and national football associations, should reduce the concentration of power within FIFA to mitigate the risks of fraud and abuse. By decentralizing executive power and ensuring a broader representation of stakeholders, the decision-making process can become more transparent and accountable. Adequate segregation of duties within FIFA is also essential to prevent excessive power consolidation among a few executives.

At the club level, protecting intellectual property is crucial for football championships, and clubs should limit access to their intellectual property to official partners only. This can help clubs safeguard valuable assets and maintain control over branding and commercial rights. (See “Understanding and Mitigating Fraud Risk in Professional Football.”)

Football clubs must always strive to improve their financial controls — they’re vital for sustainable operation. Enhancing financial efficiency correlates positively with sporting performance. (See “Understanding and Mitigating Fraud Risk in Professional Football.”) Like at any other large corporation, auditors and audit committees play a crucial role in ensuring the reliability of financial statements and detecting potential fraud risks. Surprise audits can significantly reduce fraud cases’ median loss and duration, according to the 2022 Report to the Nations.

Establishing internal audit departments, conducting external audits of internal controls over financial reporting, and maintaining independent audit committees are standard anti-fraud controls that football clubs should implement. These measures contribute to robust financial governance and provide additional layers of oversight to detect and prevent fraudulent activities. (See “Interactions between financial efficiencyand sports performance: Data for a sustainable entrepreneurial approach of European professional football clubs,” by Dina Miragaia, João Ferreira, Alexandre Carvalho and Vanessa Ratten, Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, July 19, 2019.)

Leverage technology for fraud detection

Technology plays a crucial role in detecting fraud in football through objective data analysis. The introduction of video assistant referee (VAR) technology in various football leagues worldwide allows referees to review questionable decisions using game footage. This technology helps identify fraudulent actions, such as deliberate fouls that may have been missed by on-field officials. Goal-line technology (GLT) is another critical tool that uses cameras and sensors to determine whether a ball has crossed the goal line. It helps eliminate controversies over disputed goals and prevents fraudulent actions, such as falsely claiming a goal. And player-tracking systems equipped with sensors and wearable devices collect real-time data on player movements, distances covered and physical exertion. This data can help detect anomalies or suspicious patterns, aiding in identifying players who may be involved in match fixing or other fraudulent activities. [See “Video Assistant Referee (VAR),” Inside FIFA; “Goal-line technology,” Inside FIFA; and “Athlete Tracking – What’s New in Sports Technology,” by Carl Valle, Simplifaster.)

By leveraging data analytics and machine learning we can identify patterns and anomalies such as betting tendencies, player behavior, team performance and other relevant statistics. Unusual betting patterns or unexpected player performances can raise red flags and trigger further investigations. Monitoring financial transactions related to football, such as large money transfers, suspicious betting activities, or irregular payments to players, agents or officials, can help uncover fraudulent activities.

Legislative reforms

Legislative reforms can go a long way to tackling fraud in football. Firstly, establishing stronger independent anti-corruption agencies backed by governments can help investigate and prosecute financial crimes. Secondly, imposing stricter penalties for such crimes and empowering security agencies to probe corrupt officials are essential steps. Domestic reform of Swiss legislation could grant regulators greater authority to hold FIFA accountable. (See “Nigerian football federation, corruption and development of football in Nigeria,” by O. Nwosu and Emmanuel Ugwuerua, International Journal of physical education, sports and health, 2016 and “A Long-Awaited Reboot: The FIFA Scandal and its Repercussions for Football’s Governing Body,” by Matthew B. DiCenso, Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, April 20, 2017.) Here are further reforms that might help:

• Include FIFA on the list of international public organizations to enable the application of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) to prosecute individuals involved in foreign corruption.
• Implement legal and practical strategies to prevent the sale of unofficial merchandise and ambush marketing in which an advertiser “ambushes” events to compete with other advertisers.
• Redistribute broadcasting rights equally, setting cost-reduction targets, implementing a hard salary cap at the league level and revisiting FFP regulations to promote financial stability.

(See “How the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Can Help Referee FIFA,” by Catherine Lee, Maryland Journal of International Law, 2016; “Dirty Trix at Euro 2008: Brand Protection, Ambush Marketing and Intellectual Property Theft at the European Football Championships,” by D. Pearson, Entertainment and Sports Law Journal, June 27, 2016; and “Too big to fail? Accounting for predictions of financial distress in English professional football clubs,” by Daniel Plumley, Jean-Philippe Serbera and Rob Wilson, Journal of Applied Accounting Research, Nov. 10, 2020.)

And to encourage people to report fraud, football organizations should establish robust whistleblower protection mechanisms. Offering anonymity and legal safeguards to players, staff and the public can create a safe environment for whistleblowers to provide valuable information to investigative bodies.

International cooperation

Countries should establish comprehensive legal frameworks defining football fraud offenses and corresponding penalties, both of which should align with international standards and facilitate cooperation. Governments must invest in training programs and resources for law enforcement agencies, enabling them to investigate and reduce football fraud effectively. Agencies might consider establishing specialized units dedicated to sports-related crimes equipped with financial fraud and cybersecurity experts and advanced data analytics tools to prevent and detect fraud. Strong relationships between national football associations, law enforcement agencies and relevant organizations should be fostered through agreements and sharing of best practices.

What does international cooperation look like? Countries can share data on dedicated platforms or databases on suspicious activities, investigations and trends. This enables the identification of transnational criminal networks involved in football fraud and supports joint operations. National law enforcement agencies should collaborate on cross-border investigations and operations, sharing resources and conducting simultaneous actions to disrupt criminal networks. Ultimately, it will take an entire team to effectively fight fraud in football.

Rasha Kassem, Ph.D., CFE, is an associate professor in accounting at Aston University. Contact her at r.kassem@aston.ac.uk.