THE PREM ERA 85£25m
Manchester United to Manchester City
Summer 2009
After the Argentinian striker became the
first player to move directly between the
two Manchester rivals this century, the
question was asked: who pocketed the
cash from the Tevez deal?
Words: David ConnSo, finally, the Carlos Tevez saga closed
a tumultuous chapter, with his £25 million
acquisition part of a promiscuous round of
striker shopping by Sheikh Mansour’s
Manchester City.
Just after the Argentinian was unveiled
at City – grumbling that Alex Ferguson
had not wanted him enough at Manchester
United – the FA and Premier League slipped
out the news that they had cleared West
Ham United of any further wrongdoing in
the morass of their conduct over Tevez.
And that, we are supposed to feel, is that.
Since he landed in English football back
in 2006, Tevez has zipped tirelessly across
penalty boxes, kept West Ham up single-
handedly, won two Premier League titles
and the Champions League with United,
and trailed mystery and unease in his
considerable slipstream.
When it emerged that West Ham had
not signed the star outright but on loan
from “third-party investors” who owned
his economic rights, English football had
its introduction to this alien practice,
widespread in South America.
In April 2007, West Ham were found to
have withheld vital documentation from the
Premier League which showed that Media
Sports Investments (MSI), the company
formerly run by KiaJoorabchian, “part-
owned” the player, and an independent
panel decided the arrangements gave
third parties influence over team affairs,
which is prohibited by the league’s rules.
West Ham were fined a record £5.5m- but controversially not deducted points –
and told to rip up their deal with Tevez’s
controllers if they wanted to keep him.
After the club said it had done so,
Tevez played like a mighty atom to keep
the Hammers up, including scoring the
only goal in the last game of the season
at Old Trafford. Ferguson evidently liked
what he saw and signed the Argentinian - again, thought to be on a loan deal.
Sheffield United, who went down, argued
that the London club’s breaches of the rules
had cost them their place in the Premier
League, and were later awarded £20m
in compensation for the financial costs of
relegation in an out of court settlement.
Since Tevez arrived in the Premier League,
the distaste in England with the idea of
businessmen “owning” young footballers led
to the practice being banned. Mansour’s City,
for their £25m, now own Tevez’s registration.Joorabchian’s investors have done their
final business with Tevez – and lucrative
business it has been.
Tevez said he is at City not for the money
but to win trophies, in a squad swollen with
players bought with the Abu Dhabi oil riches.
The £25m fee is believed to have been
paid to the unnamed advisors who bought
Tevez when the striker moved from Boca
Juniors to Corinthians in Brazil. A fortnight
before the City deal, a report was published
by the Financial Action Task Force, an
inter-governmental organisation set up to
counter global terrorism, which warned that
football is vulnerable to money laundering.
It raised concerns about exactly this kind
of set-up, though it made no allegations aboutTevez andJoorabchian and emphasised
that thereis no money laundering in the
arrangements.The FATF said there is
a risk of money laundering, beyond
the powers of the football authorities
to investigate it, where players’ economic
rights are owned by offshore companies
with unnamed investors.City’s purchase of Tevez has closed
one chapter and opened a new era for a
player still to prove himself great. But many
questions do still remain about who made
the money from owning then selling him, and
how they came to “own” him in the first place.CarlosTEVEZ
Joorabchian’s investors have done
their final business with Tevez –and
lucrative business it has been
Tevez spent four years at City, scoring 58
Premier League goals, but his time at the
club was as controversial as his arrival. In
201 1-12 he spent several months away
from the club after refusing to come on
as a substitute in a Champions League tie
at Bayern Munich, and joined Juventus
the following summer.WHAT CAME NEXT...