July 5 – Sports law association Rex Sport has joined with the CEU Cardinal Herrera University in Valencia, Spain, to launch an Online Master in International Sports Law.
By Paul Nicholson
July 4 – Bruce Blake, First Vice President of the Cayman Islands Football Association (CIFA) and a Caribbean Football Union (CFU) executive committee member, has denied at any time receiving any ‘secret’ commission or engaging in any money laundering activity.
By Mark Baber
June 29 – The UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is to charge six people in relation to the Hillsborough Stadium disaster that left 96 Liverpool fans dead. David Duckenfield, the police officer who was the match commander on the day of the tragedy is to be charged with 95 cases of manslaughter by gross negligence.
June 28 – Football agent Jorge Mendes has denied that he helped Colombia and Monaco striker Radamel Falcao to evade tax in Spain. Mendes appeared 45 minutes before a judge in a closed doors court hearing in Madrid as part of a probe into whether Falcao could be prosecuted over tax evasion.
By Paul Nicholson
June 23 – The sentencing in the US of Jeffrey Webb, the former CONCACAF president and FIFA vice president arrested in Zurich in hotel raids in May 2015 has been postponed for the fifth time by a Brooklyn federal court judge. The new date is now set for 24 January 2018.
June 23 – An HM Revenue and Customs raid on newly promoted Newcastle United’s offices, made at the end of April this year, may have been unlawful and the search-and-seize order HMRC obtained to launch the raid should be subject to judicial review a judge has ruled.
By Mark Baber
June 21 – Real Madrid star Luka Modric is to be investigated for perjury by Croatian authorities, after giving testimony at the corruption trial of his former manager Zdravko Mamic. If found guilty of lying under oath about when he signed a crucial contract annex, the ex-Spurs and Dinamo Zagreb player could face between six months and five years in prison.
June 21 – Spanish prosecutors have kept up their pressure on football’s alleged tax avoiders with Manchester United manager José Mourinho being the latest to be dragged before the courts. Mourinho has denied tax fraud of €3.3 million relating to his time at Real Madrid.
June 18 – The US Justice Department has confirmed that Brazilian football federation (CBF) president Marco Polo Del Nero is still under investigation for bribery in 2014, but Del Nero has not yet been formally charged.
By Mark Baber
June 16 – Jorge Luis Arzuaga (pictured), an Argentine national and former managing director at Swiss bankers Julius Baer, pled guilty to money laundering conspiracy in the Brooklyn federal court on Thursday, admitting to arranging transfers of over $25 million in bribes and kickbacks from 2010 to 2015.
By Andrew Warshaw
June 1 – Atletico Madrid have reacted furiously after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) threw out their last-ditch appeal against a transfer ban imposed by FIFA for signing non-Spanish players under the age of 18, saying the verdict will cause “irreparable damage”.
May 26 – Once one of the most influential figures in European football, playing a prominent role in the European Club Association and representing the body on various UEFA and FIFA committees, Sandro Rosell faces a grim future after a Spanish judge ordered prison without bail for the former Barcelona boss.
May 26 – Having already snared one of the two best players in world football in Lionel Messi, the Spanish tax evasion scandal could be about to involve the other after prosecutors revealed they are considering whether Cristiano Ronaldo should face charges over allegations that he defrauded the authorities of €15 million between 2011 and 2014.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 25 – Ten months after Lionel Messi and his father were given 21-month suspended jail sentences for tax fraud relating to the player’s image rights, Spain’s Supreme Court has confirmed both the sentence and the €2 million fine imposed on Barcelona’s Argentine superstar.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 25 – Costas Takkas, close associate of disgraced ex-CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb and like Webb one of the original ‘Zurich Seven’ arrested two years ago in that infamous hotel swoop that plunged FIFA into unprecedented crisis, has changed his plea to guilty to money laundering conspiracy as his trial gets closer.