We discovered that a total of 14 English
Premier League members and a further five
in the Championship, together with one in
League One and two in the Scottish League,
are now based offshore. Until recently, that
was also the case for one of the clubs in the
League of Ireland.
The locations of ownership of a further
English Premier League club, a
Championship club and a League One club
were impossible to verify.
The research resulted in a new ranking:
the Christian Aid Football Secrecy League.
Positions in the ranking reflect the extent
of secrecy surrounding the controlling
ownership of each club, multiplied by a
measure to reflect the number of fans being
denied information.
The clubs with the worst scores are therefore
those whose use of offshore secrecy
obscures both the clubs’ ultimate ownership
and financial position. As a result the
financial secrecy involved has the potential
to facilitate the greatest social harharm in
football.
Introduction Blowing the whistle 3
To establish the secrecy component, we
used the ‘Opacity Score’ of the tax haven or
other jurisdiction to which we were able to
trace the ownership of each club.
These Opacity Scores are taken from the
Financial Secrecy Index that was drawn
up recently by campaign group the Tax
Justice Network and Christian Aid, after
analysing the secrecy each haven (or secrecy
jurisdiction) offers, and the extent of their
reluctance to share information about those
using their services.3
As a measure of the size of clubs’ fan bases,
we used the average home attendance. This
rough figure, although including visiting
fans, provides the most consistent proxy for a
club’s supporter numbers – the stakeholders
who are routinely denied information about
their club’s financial fortunes.
Manchester United is used to winning most
trophies that are available; it also heads this
new ranking. Although the identities of its
apparent owners are seemingly known – the
Glazer family from the US – full details of
their business empire remain a tax-haven
mystery. This makes the club, thanks to the
size of the gate at Old Trafford, the single
biggest contributor to football’s financial
secrecy in the UK and Ireland (see the
Christian Aid Football Secrecy League,
page 18).
It isn’t just the curse of financial secrecy,
however, that links football fans in the UK
and the Republic of Ireland and people living
in grinding poverty in poor countries.
The changes needed to tackle financial
secrecy in football are the same that are
needed to lift the secrecy that affects
the developing world. Those who care
about football, and those who care about
eradicating poverty, should together demand
three major reforms.
Tax dodging in poor countries could be
greatly reduced if companies trading
internationally were required to declare
the profits made and the tax paid in every
country where they operate. That way,
tax anomalies could be quickly spotted
and investigated (see ‘Tax dodging in the
developing world’, page 21).
A similar rule, if applied to the owners of
football clubs and their companies, would
enable supporters and football’s ruling
bodies alike to see where club owners’
assets and liabilities are held, and to know
the size of both.
Armed with that information, fans would be
far better placed to judge whether those with
the resources of the club at their disposal
amount to fit and proper owners (see ‘The Fit
and Proper Person Test’, page 10).
Measures are also needed that would trigger
far greater transparency in the business
world. The ownership or control of each
company, corporation, trust, partnership,
The changes needed to tackle financial
secrecy in football are the same that are
needed to lift the secrecy that affects the
developing world.
