THIERRY
HENRY
Sacked
by Ligue 1
strugglers
Monaco after
winning just
four games in
his first job as
a head coach.CLUB
AFRICAIN
The Tunisian
side’s 8-0 loss
to TP Mazembe
was a record
defeat in the
CAF Champions
League group
stage.TOTTENHAM
HOTSPUR
Without a trophy for
11 years, they were
knocked out of the
League Cup and FA Cup
in the space of three
days by London rivals
Chelsea and Crystal
Palace respectively.FABIO
QUAGLIARELLA
Sampdoria striker
equalled Gabriel
Batistuta’s record
of scoring in 11
consecutive Serie
A games and was
also called up for an
Italy training camp.JUVENTUS
Reached the
second week
of February
as the only
unbeaten
side in any
of Europe’s
top five
leagues.QATAR
Beat Japan
3-1 in the
Asian Cup
Final to
become
continental
champions
for the
first time.a “European Super League would
damage football worldwide”.
Illicit hacking or not, UEFA sent the
Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City
files back to its FFP regulator for further
investigations, with PSG sufficiently
spooked to challenge the decision, in
vain, at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Simultaneously, Der Spiegel was tipped
off about Cristiano Ronaldo’s “hush
money” deal in June 2009 over his
fling in Las Vegas with a young woman
named Kathryn Mayorga. He called the
report “fake news”, but Las Vegas police
reopened its investigation and requested
a DNA sample.
Tax avoidance, financial fairplay
breaches, transfer double-dealing,
back-door deals at the highest levels
...all serious stuff. But lifting the lid on
corruption is not a safe occupation.
Last May, Kwesi Nyantakyi, FIFA
Council member, vice-president of CAF
and head of the Ghana FA was arrested
in Accra on corruption charges. Within
weeks he quit all his posts and was
suspended from football.
Nyantakyi had been recorded using
the name of the state president and
other senior government officials to try to
persuade “potential investors” to part
with up to $65million. He was exposed
by investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw
Anas in a two-hour TV documentary.
Anas and his colleagues from Tiger
Eye Private Investigations not only nailed
Nyantakyi but also referees who took
bribes ranging from goats to cash sums
of $650. Kenya’s Aden Range Marwa,
who had been due to be an assistant
referee at the World Cup was caught
accepting $600 in cash.
Eight months later, in January, when
the immediate fuss had faded, Anas’
work colleague Ahmed Hussein-Suale
was shot dead.
Wearing a mask, Anas made a rare
public appearance in February at the
annual congress of the international
sports journalists’ association AIPS toexplain: “I knew nothing about sport
but when we work on a story over a
long period it is because we know it
can achieve a maximum resolution.
“When you are dealing with extreme
diseases you have to respond with
extreme remedies. I belong to the
remedies. But we know all investigators
face some level of danger.”
They also operate as lone wolves in
grey areas – as Der Spiegel found out just
before Christmas when it was revealed
that one of its top journalists, Claas
Relotius, had “made up stories and
invented protagonists”.
That prompts further questions about
Pinto. Was he operating alone or with
other hackers? What was his motivation?
He told Der Spiegel: “I don’t consider
myself as a hacker but as a citizen who
acted in the public interest. My sole
intention was to reveal illicit practices
that affect the world of football.”‘JOHN’ IN HIS OWN WORDS:
“I have been a football fan since I
was a child and I already realised
around the time of the Bosman
ruling that football was developing
in the completely wrong direction.
“The best young players were
moving to the top teams; the entire
competition was shifting to the
advantage of the top clubs.
“The main trigger was the FIFA
scandal in 2015. Alongside all
those arrests I saw irregularities
in numerous transfers in Portugal.
More and more investors were filling
the market. I started to collect data.
“The more I read, the more
shocked I was. I saw how offshore
companies were set up, how sports
agents hid behind front men, how
tax evasion was carried out on a
large scale.”Football Leaks’ “John”...revealed as Rui PintoGLOBAL FOOTBALL INTELLIGENCE
When the immediate fuss had faded, Anas’
work colleague Ahmed Hussein-Suale
was shot dead