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INTRODUCTION
STORIES
PEOPLE
DATA
Leak Ties Ethics Guru
to Three Men
Charged in FIFA
Scandal
About ICIJ
Secret documents show how deeply the
world of soccer has become enmeshed
in the world of o shore havens
By Gary Rivlin,
Marcos García Rey
and Michael Hudson
Apr 3, 2016
Reading time:
10 minutes
SEND TO YOUR INBOX
FOLLOW INVESTIGATION
In this story
Four of the 16 FIFA o icials indicted in the
United States used o shore companies created
by Mossack Fonseca
Files show o shore companies used by some
soccer players to hold money from image rights
deals
O shore revelations extend beyond soccer to
other sports including hockey and golf
GAME
Donate
other sports including hockey and golf
Leaked documents reveal that the law firm of a FIFA
ethics watchdog had business relationships with
three men who have been indicted in the world
soccer association’s corruption scandal.
The confidential files disclose previously unknown
dealings between the three men and Juan Pedro
Damiani, a member of FIFA’s Independent Ethics
Committee, which has handed down a series of bans
against high-level executives at the organization.
The records show that Damiani and his law firm did
work for at least seven o shore companies linked to
Eugenio Figueredo, a former FIFA vice president who
has been charged by U.S. authorities with wire fraud
and money laundering for his role in the alleged
bribery conspiracy.
The records also show that Damiani’s law firm
served as an intermediary for a Nevada-based
company linked to Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, a
father-son team of businessmen who have been
accused of paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes
to gain broadcast rights to FIFA events in Latin
America.
The records do not show illegal conduct by Damiani
or his law firm. But they do raise new questions for
Damiani and FIFA at a time when the nexus between
o shore secrecy and corruption has been a growing
concern in the world’s most popular sport.
Damiani, the president of Uruguay’s Club Atlético
Peñarol, one of the more important soccer clubs in
Latin America, said his
law firm does not
maintain “any
professional
relationship” with
anyone indicted in the
Juan Pedro Damiani (le ) in 2007. Photo: Vince
U.S.’s FIFA
Alongi
investigation. He did
not answer a question
about previous working relationships with people
indicted in the case.
A spokesman for the ethics panel confirmed,
however, that Damiani informed the committee on
March 18 that he has had business ties to Figueredo.
That was one day a er the International Consortium
of Investigative Journalists and other reporting
partners sent detailed questions to Damiani about
his law firm’s work for companies linked to the
former FIFA vice-president.
The ethics panel says it has now launched a
preliminary investigation into Damiani’s relationship
with Figueredo.
The links between the ethics watchdog and figures
indicted in the FIFA scandal are among the new
revelations about the hidden side of soccer
contained in the leaked documents.
The secret files show that what is o en called the
called “the beautiful game” could also be dubbed
the game of dummy corporations and tax havens.
The documents expose o shore entities used by an
array of players, team owners, league o icials, sports
agents and soccer clubs to move money o shore.
These findings are the result a yearlong investigation
by ICIJ, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung
and other media partners. The reporting partners
si ed through more than 11 million records from the
internal files of Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based
law firm that specializes in helping the wealthy and
powerful set up o shore companies.
The Mossack Fonseca documents include the names
of nearly 20 high-profile soccer players, past and
present, representing some of the globe’s bestknown professional football clubs, including
Barcelona, Manchester United and Real Madrid.
Among the names: Lionel Messi.
The Barcelona star, a five-time world player of the
year, is already under indictment in Spain on charges
that he and his father, Jorge Horacio Messi, used
o shore companies in Belize and Uruguay to sti the
government out of millions of dollars in taxes.
The leaked documents show that Messi and his
father owned yet another o shore company in
Panama: Mega Star Enterprises.
The first reference to the company in Mossack
Fonseca’s files came on June 13, 2013 — one day
a er Spanish prosecutors first filed tax fraud charges
against Messi and his father. An email indicated that
responsibility for handling the company’s paperwork
was being transferred to Mossack Fonseca from
another o shore corporate agent.
The first reference in the files to the Messis owning
Mega Star came less than two weeks later, on June
23, 2013.
Through his father, Messi declined to comment for
this story.
The files also include the o shore holdings of current
or former owners of at least 20 major soccer clubs,
including Internazionale Milano and Boca Juniors.
While soccer players and executives are by far the
most common sports-related names in the leaked
documents, the files also include the names of
current and former athletes from other sports.
“Over the years, we’ve seen an increasing
penetration of o shore finance into sports, which we
believe is detrimental to the game,” said George
Turner of the Tax Justice Network, a fair-tax
advocacy group based in London. “If we’re shi ing
competition away from the athleticism, the skill, the
talent of the players and into the skill and talent of
the accountants, lawyers, bankers, and boardroom
executives, the sport quickly becomes a pointless
thing to go and watch.”
Mossack Fonseca’s internal files reveal, for example,
that at least 11 retired National Hockey League
players used the law firm to help administer o shore
structures. The records show that Nick Faldo, one of
the top professional golfers of all time, owned an
o shore company in the British Virgin Islands from
2006 until 2008. Faldo is one of at least five golfers
whose names appear in the documents.
A spokesperson for Faldo declined comment.
Soccer ethics
The FIFA scandal broke into the open in 2015 when
the U.S. Justice Department charged that
entrepreneurs had used bribes and kickbacks to win
favorable terms on the broadcast rights to games
sponsored by the world soccer body.
Four of the 16 FIFA o icials indicted in the United
States used o shore companies created by Mossack
Fonseca, as did four businessmen linked to the
soccer corruption case, the leaked records show.
The records show that two of the businessmen
charged with fraud and money laundering in the
scandal — Hugo and Mariano Jinkis — have been
linked to a company called Cross Trading SA that was
originally incorporated on the tiny Pacific island of
Niue in 1998, then moved to Nevada in 2006 as Cross
Trading LLC.
Both Hugo and Mariano Jinkis are mentioned in
correspondence regarding Cross Trading between
Mossack Fonseca and the law of firm of Damiani, the
FIFA ethics panel member. The leaked records listed
Hugo Jinkis as a “beneficiary” of the company a er it
moved to Nevada.
The records show that Damiani’s law firm did work
for Cross Trading while it was in Niue as well as in
Nevada — handling correspondence for Cross
Trading and advising on the question of whether it
would have to pay taxes in Nevada. At one point a er
the company’s move to Nevada, the records listed
Damiani as Cross Trading’s “principal beneficiary,”
but it’s unclear what that meant. It’s possible that
was a temporary designation while the new
structure for the company was being arranged.
Damiani’s ties to Cross Trading weren’t unusual.
According to the leaked documents, Damiani and his
law firm, J.P. Damiani & Asociados, have acted as a
go-between for hundreds of companies registered
with Mossack Fonseca.
Among them are five
o shore companies
owned by Figueredo,
the former FIFA vice
president arrested in
Zurich in May 2015 .
Damiani’s firm also
Figueredo leaves the courthouse a er he was
extradited from Switzerland to face fraud and
acted as an
money laundering charges in Uruguay. Photo: AP
intermediary for a
Photo / Matilde Campodonico
company over which
Figueredo held power of attorney and another
company for which Figueredo and members of his
family served as o icers and directors.
Figueredo has been charged with taking part in a
bribery scheme in which media and marketing
executives were to pay more than $100 million in
exchange for the rights to Copa Libertadores, the
annual Latin American soccer championship, and
other major events.
In a separate case, Figueredo has already pleaded
guilty to fraud and money laundering in his native
Uruguay.
Damiani said through a spokesperson that he wasn’t
authorized to make statements while o icials in
Uruguay are investigating allegations of corruption
related to FIFA. He added, however, that he taken a
lead in reporting corrupt practices within FIFA to
Uruguayan authorities and to the soccer
organization’s ethics committee.
More FIFA figures
One of the biggest soccer figures named in the
documents is Michel Platini, a former French soccer
great and a key figure in the 2015 FIFA scandal.
Platini relied on Mossack Fonseca to help him
administer an o shore company created in Panama
in 2007, the same year he was named president of
UEFA, the European soccer association. Platini was
given an unlimited power of attorney for Balney
Enterprises Corp., which was still an active business
as of March 2016, according to Panama’s commercial
register.
Platini, a longtime member of FIFA’s executive
committee, has already been banned from the sport
for six years because of a questionable $2 million
payment he received from FIFA in 2011.
An attorney for Platini said his client is a Swiss citizen
and noted that all his “bank accounts, investments
or assets are known by the Swiss Authorities.”
Jérôme Valcke, the secretary general of FIFA from
2007 until he was banned on corruption charges in
September 2015, also appears in the leaked
documents. Valcke is listed as the owner of a British
Virgin Islands company called Umbelina SA, created
in July 2013. The company appears to have been
used to purchase a yacht registered in the Cayman
Islands.
“Publish what you want,” Valcke wrote in an email
responding to questions for this story. “The company
no longer exists and never had its own funds, never
held a bank account and never had any commercial
activity.”
The Mossack Fonseca files also provide details of
broadcast agreements that o icials with CONMEBOL,
the South American soccer association, signed with
companies that U.S. authorities claim paid bribes
and kickbacks. The men who signed these deals for
the association — CONMEBOL’s former president,
Nicolás Leoz , and its former secretary general,
Eduardo Deluca — were both indicted by the U.S. in
November.
One deal, with a company run by an entrepreneur
named as an unindicted “co-conspirator,” provided
that CONMEBOL would be paid $97 million for the
rights to broadcast Copa Libertadores
championships from 2008 to 2018. According to the
2015 indictments, the entrepreneur secured media
and marketing rights for his companies by paying
annual six-figure bribes to Leoz, Deluca and other
CONMEBOL o icials over a period of several years.
Cast of players
The soccer players whose names appear in the
Mossack Fonseca files hail from Brazil, Uruguay, the
United Kingdom, Turkey, Serbia, The Netherlands
and Sweden, among other countries. Most seemed
to have used the law firm’s services to create
o shore companies to hold the money they earned
selling their image rights to athletic shoe companies
and other advertisers.
Lionel Messi and his father, who served as his son’s
agent, are slated to stand trial on tax fraud charges
starting May 31. Accused of shortchanging the
government out of nearly $6.5 million in taxes by
shielding his image rights in an o shore network,
Messi has paid the back taxes the government said
he owed for the years 2007-2009.
Messi denies that he deliberately tried to deceive
anyone.
Messi during the 2014 World Cup Final game between Argentina and
Germany. Photo: AGIF / Shutterstock.com
Mega Star Enterprises , the o shore company owned
by Messi and his father at least as far back as 2013 , is
not mentioned in the Spanish government’s 2014
and 2015 indictments against the pair. The leaked
records show Messi signed at least one document
reflecting his ownership of Mega Star, but that his
father, Jorge Messi, took over sole ownership of the
company in December 2015. The company remains
active in Panama’s company register.
Messi isn’t alone when it comes to using o shore
havens.
Among the others named in the secret files:
Leonardo Ulloa, a top scorer for Leicester City, the
surprise team of the season for fans of the Premier
League.
In early 2008, when he was playing for San Lorenzo
de Almagro in Argentina, Leo Ulloa signed over his
economic and image rights to Jump Drive Sport
Rights LLC, a company registered in New York.
On paper, Jump Drive’s director and shareholder
weren’t people but instead two companies based in
the South Pacific nation of Samoa. Jump Drive’s
power of attorney was held by José Manuel García
Osuna, a businessman and soccer administrator who
is now facing fraud charges in Spain, including an
allegation that he pocketed a large percentage of the
money that Ulloa was supposed to receive for his
image rights as well as for his signing contracts to
move from one team to another.
Ulloa declined to discuss his image rights agreement
or his dealings with Osuna. “I don’t have a good
relationship with him now, but I don’t want to talk
about it,” Ulloa said in a brief telephone interview.
Osuna told ICIJ that he didn’t incorporate Jump
Drive and he didn’t sign Ulloa’s image rights
contract. He said he negotiated Ulloa’s signing with
the Spanish club CD Castellón but he “did not bill a
single cent to the club in exchange for my services.”
Iván Zamorano, a retired footballer from Chile who
was named to the FIFA 100 list of the world’s best
living players.
His image rights were held by Fut Bam International
Ltd. when he was a star player for Real Madrid in the
1990s. Fut Bam is based in the British Virgin Islands,
which has an e ective tax rate of zero, and lists
Zamorano as its owner.
Fut Bam granted temporary custody of those image
rights to Real Madrid in exchange for a total payment
of $195 million pesetas —roughly $1.3 million dollars.
The club was to pay Fut Bam $45 million pesetas in
1993 and then another $50 million pesetas
($330,000) a year between 1994 and 1996.
Gabriel Iván Heinze, who is from Argentina and
played with Manchester United and Real Madrid,
among other teams.
In 2005, while he was with Manchester United,
Heinze created the Galena Mills Corp., also in the
British Virgin Islands. That same year he signed a
contract with Puma AG that guaranteed him
payments of at least $1 million over five years. The
payments from Puma were channeled through the
o shore company. The records show that Heinze’s
mother was listed as the company’s owner.
The Puma deal ended in 2008, a few months a er
Heinze joined Real Madrid. The Mossack Fonseca
files also show that the former footballer also held a
Swiss bank account with UBS.
A spokesman for Heinze said that “the set up of
Galena Mills was a part of a succession (inheritance)
strategy, just in case something bad could happen to
Heinze.” The spokesman said Galena Mills “paid all
the necessary taxes” in the countries where it was
supposed to pay taxes.
Team e ort
The secret documents also expose how one club,
Real Sociedad in Spain, paid its players in a way that
appears to have allowed both the club and its
players to slash their tax payments.
The documents show that the club shelled out
millions of dollars each year to the foreign players in
its employ, even as the players reported a fraction of
those payments to the Spanish government. Real
Sociedad paid seven of its foreign players that way
between 2000 and 2008, the records show, via
companies and banks in Niue, Panama, the British
Virgin Islands, the Netherlands, Switzerland and
Jersey in the Channel Islands.
Spanish authorities were told that Darko Kovacevic,
a well-known Serbian footballer, was earning about
$2,000 a month from the team during the 2006-2007
season, according to an online news site,
ExtraConfidential.com, which in December published
parts of an investigative report by a Spanish
prosecutor . Mossack Fonseca’s files show that that
the team paid Kovacevic roughly $1.4 million that
season through IMFC Licensing in The Netherlands.
Real Sociedad’s general manager, Iñaki Otegi,
declined to answer questions about the club’s
payment practices. But the club’s press o icer said
that Otegi “asked me to phone you and tell you that
this sort of practice of using companies abroad to
remunerate the foreign players was and is a common
practice in all Spanish soccer clubs.”
Contributor to this story: Bastian Obermayer
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The Panama Papers
INTRODUCTION
STORIES
PEOPLE
DATA
Leak Ties Ethics Guru
to Three Men
Charged in FIFA
Scandal
About ICIJ
Secret documents show how deeply the
world of soccer has become enmeshed
in the world of o shore havens
By Gary Rivlin,
Marcos García Rey
and Michael Hudson
Apr 3, 2016
Reading time:
10 minutes
SEND TO YOUR INBOX
FOLLOW INVESTIGATION
In this story
Four of the 16 FIFA o icials indicted in the
United States used o shore companies created
by Mossack Fonseca
Files show o shore companies used by some
soccer players to hold money from image rights
deals
O shore revelations extend beyond soccer to
other sports including hockey and golf
GAME
Donate
other sports including hockey and golf
Leaked documents reveal that the law firm of a FIFA
ethics watchdog had business relationships with
three men who have been indicted in the world
soccer association’s corruption scandal.
The confidential files disclose previously unknown
dealings between the three men and Juan Pedro
Damiani, a member of FIFA’s Independent Ethics
Committee, which has handed down a series of bans
against high-level executives at the organization.
The records show that Damiani and his law firm did
work for at least seven o shore companies linked to
Eugenio Figueredo, a former FIFA vice president who
has been charged by U.S. authorities with wire fraud
and money laundering for his role in the alleged
bribery conspiracy.
The records also show that Damiani’s law firm
served as an intermediary for a Nevada-based
company linked to Hugo and Mariano Jinkis, a
father-son team of businessmen who have been
accused of paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes
to gain broadcast rights to FIFA events in Latin
America.
The records do not show illegal conduct by Damiani
or his law firm. But they do raise new questions for
Damiani and FIFA at a time when the nexus between
o shore secrecy and corruption has been a growing
concern in the world’s most popular sport.
Damiani, the president of Uruguay’s Club Atlético
Peñarol, one of the more important soccer clubs in
Latin America, said his
law firm does not
maintain “any
professional
relationship” with
anyone indicted in the
Juan Pedro Damiani (le ) in 2007. Photo: Vince
U.S.’s FIFA
Alongi
investigation. He did
not answer a question
about previous working relationships with people
indicted in the case.
A spokesman for the ethics panel confirmed,
however, that Damiani informed the committee on
March 18 that he has had business ties to Figueredo.
That was one day a er the International Consortium
of Investigative Journalists and other reporting
partners sent detailed questions to Damiani about
his law firm’s work for companies linked to the
former FIFA vice-president.
The ethics panel says it has now launched a
preliminary investigation into Damiani’s relationship
with Figueredo.
The links between the ethics watchdog and figures
indicted in the FIFA scandal are among the new
revelations about the hidden side of soccer
contained in the leaked documents.
The secret files show that what is o en called the
called “the beautiful game” could also be dubbed
the game of dummy corporations and tax havens.
The documents expose o shore entities used by an
array of players, team owners, league o icials, sports
agents and soccer clubs to move money o shore.
These findings are the result a yearlong investigation
by ICIJ, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung
and other media partners. The reporting partners
si ed through more than 11 million records from the
internal files of Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based
law firm that specializes in helping the wealthy and
powerful set up o shore companies.
The Mossack Fonseca documents include the names
of nearly 20 high-profile soccer players, past and
present, representing some of the globe’s bestknown professional football clubs, including
Barcelona, Manchester United and Real Madrid.
Among the names: Lionel Messi.
The Barcelona star, a five-time world player of the
year, is already under indictment in Spain on charges
that he and his father, Jorge Horacio Messi, used
o shore companies in Belize and Uruguay to sti the
government out of millions of dollars in taxes.
The leaked documents show that Messi and his
father owned yet another o shore company in
Panama: Mega Star Enterprises.
The first reference to the company in Mossack
Fonseca’s files came on June 13, 2013 — one day
a er Spanish prosecutors first filed tax fraud charges
against Messi and his father. An email indicated that
responsibility for handling the company’s paperwork
was being transferred to Mossack Fonseca from
another o shore corporate agent.
The first reference in the files to the Messis owning
Mega Star came less than two weeks later, on June
23, 2013.
Through his father, Messi declined to comment for
this story.
The files also include the o shore holdings of current
or former owners of at least 20 major soccer clubs,
including Internazionale Milano and Boca Juniors.
While soccer players and executives are by far the
most common sports-related names in the leaked
documents, the files also include the names of
current and former athletes from other sports.
“Over the years, we’ve seen an increasing
penetration of o shore finance into sports, which we
believe is detrimental to the game,” said George
Turner of the Tax Justice Network, a fair-tax
advocacy group based in London. “If we’re shi ing
competition away from the athleticism, the skill, the
talent of the players and into the skill and talent of
the accountants, lawyers, bankers, and boardroom
executives, the sport quickly becomes a pointless
thing to go and watch.”
Mossack Fonseca’s internal files reveal, for example,
that at least 11 retired National Hockey League
players used the law firm to help administer o shore
structures. The records show that Nick Faldo, one of
the top professional golfers of all time, owned an
o shore company in the British Virgin Islands from
2006 until 2008. Faldo is one of at least five golfers
whose names appear in the documents.
A spokesperson for Faldo declined comment.
Soccer ethics
The FIFA scandal broke into the open in 2015 when
the U.S. Justice Department charged that
entrepreneurs had used bribes and kickbacks to win
favorable terms on the broadcast rights to games
sponsored by the world soccer body.
Four of the 16 FIFA o icials indicted in the United
States used o shore companies created by Mossack
Fonseca, as did four businessmen linked to the
soccer corruption case, the leaked records show.
The records show that two of the businessmen
charged with fraud and money laundering in the
scandal — Hugo and Mariano Jinkis — have been
linked to a company called Cross Trading SA that was
originally incorporated on the tiny Pacific island of
Niue in 1998, then moved to Nevada in 2006 as Cross
Trading LLC.
Both Hugo and Mariano Jinkis are mentioned in
correspondence regarding Cross Trading between
Mossack Fonseca and the law of firm of Damiani, the
FIFA ethics panel member. The leaked records listed
Hugo Jinkis as a “beneficiary” of the company a er it
moved to Nevada.
The records show that Damiani’s law firm did work
for Cross Trading while it was in Niue as well as in
Nevada — handling correspondence for Cross
Trading and advising on the question of whether it
would have to pay taxes in Nevada. At one point a er
the company’s move to Nevada, the records listed
Damiani as Cross Trading’s “principal beneficiary,”
but it’s unclear what that meant. It’s possible that
was a temporary designation while the new
structure for the company was being arranged.
Damiani’s ties to Cross Trading weren’t unusual.
According to the leaked documents, Damiani and his
law firm, J.P. Damiani & Asociados, have acted as a
go-between for hundreds of companies registered
with Mossack Fonseca.
Among them are five
o shore companies
owned by Figueredo,
the former FIFA vice
president arrested in
Zurich in May 2015 .
Damiani’s firm also
Figueredo leaves the courthouse a er he was
extradited from Switzerland to face fraud and
acted as an
money laundering charges in Uruguay. Photo: AP
intermediary for a
Photo / Matilde Campodonico
company over which
Figueredo held power of attorney and another
company for which Figueredo and members of his
family served as o icers and directors.
Figueredo has been charged with taking part in a
bribery scheme in which media and marketing
executives were to pay more than $100 million in
exchange for the rights to Copa Libertadores, the
annual Latin American soccer championship, and
other major events.
In a separate case, Figueredo has already pleaded
guilty to fraud and money laundering in his native
Uruguay.
Damiani said through a spokesperson that he wasn’t
authorized to make statements while o icials in
Uruguay are investigating allegations of corruption
related to FIFA. He added, however, that he taken a
lead in reporting corrupt practices within FIFA to
Uruguayan authorities and to the soccer
organization’s ethics committee.
More FIFA figures
One of the biggest soccer figures named in the
documents is Michel Platini, a former French soccer
great and a key figure in the 2015 FIFA scandal.
Platini relied on Mossack Fonseca to help him
administer an o shore company created in Panama
in 2007, the same year he was named president of
UEFA, the European soccer association. Platini was
given an unlimited power of attorney for Balney
Enterprises Corp., which was still an active business
as of March 2016, according to Panama’s commercial
register.
Platini, a longtime member of FIFA’s executive
committee, has already been banned from the sport
for six years because of a questionable $2 million
payment he received from FIFA in 2011.
An attorney for Platini said his client is a Swiss citizen
and noted that all his “bank accounts, investments
or assets are known by the Swiss Authorities.”
Jérôme Valcke, the secretary general of FIFA from
2007 until he was banned on corruption charges in
September 2015, also appears in the leaked
documents. Valcke is listed as the owner of a British
Virgin Islands company called Umbelina SA, created
in July 2013. The company appears to have been
used to purchase a yacht registered in the Cayman
Islands.
“Publish what you want,” Valcke wrote in an email
responding to questions for this story. “The company
no longer exists and never had its own funds, never
held a bank account and never had any commercial
activity.”
The Mossack Fonseca files also provide details of
broadcast agreements that o icials with CONMEBOL,
the South American soccer association, signed with
companies that U.S. authorities claim paid bribes
and kickbacks. The men who signed these deals for
the association — CONMEBOL’s former president,
Nicolás Leoz , and its former secretary general,
Eduardo Deluca — were both indicted by the U.S. in
November.
One deal, with a company run by an entrepreneur
named as an unindicted “co-conspirator,” provided
that CONMEBOL would be paid $97 million for the
rights to broadcast Copa Libertadores
championships from 2008 to 2018. According to the
2015 indictments, the entrepreneur secured media
and marketing rights for his companies by paying
annual six-figure bribes to Leoz, Deluca and other
CONMEBOL o icials over a period of several years.
Cast of players
The soccer players whose names appear in the
Mossack Fonseca files hail from Brazil, Uruguay, the
United Kingdom, Turkey, Serbia, The Netherlands
and Sweden, among other countries. Most seemed
to have used the law firm’s services to create
o shore companies to hold the money they earned
selling their image rights to athletic shoe companies
and other advertisers.
Lionel Messi and his father, who served as his son’s
agent, are slated to stand trial on tax fraud charges
starting May 31. Accused of shortchanging the
government out of nearly $6.5 million in taxes by
shielding his image rights in an o shore network,
Messi has paid the back taxes the government said
he owed for the years 2007-2009.
Messi denies that he deliberately tried to deceive
anyone.
Messi during the 2014 World Cup Final game between Argentina and
Germany. Photo: AGIF / Shutterstock.com
Mega Star Enterprises , the o shore company owned
by Messi and his father at least as far back as 2013 , is
not mentioned in the Spanish government’s 2014
and 2015 indictments against the pair. The leaked
records show Messi signed at least one document
reflecting his ownership of Mega Star, but that his
father, Jorge Messi, took over sole ownership of the
company in December 2015. The company remains
active in Panama’s company register.
Messi isn’t alone when it comes to using o shore
havens.
Among the others named in the secret files:
Leonardo Ulloa, a top scorer for Leicester City, the
surprise team of the season for fans of the Premier
League.
In early 2008, when he was playing for San Lorenzo
de Almagro in Argentina, Leo Ulloa signed over his
economic and image rights to Jump Drive Sport
Rights LLC, a company registered in New York.
On paper, Jump Drive’s director and shareholder
weren’t people but instead two companies based in
the South Pacific nation of Samoa. Jump Drive’s
power of attorney was held by José Manuel García
Osuna, a businessman and soccer administrator who
is now facing fraud charges in Spain, including an
allegation that he pocketed a large percentage of the
money that Ulloa was supposed to receive for his
image rights as well as for his signing contracts to
move from one team to another.
Ulloa declined to discuss his image rights agreement
or his dealings with Osuna. “I don’t have a good
relationship with him now, but I don’t want to talk
about it,” Ulloa said in a brief telephone interview.
Osuna told ICIJ that he didn’t incorporate Jump
Drive and he didn’t sign Ulloa’s image rights
contract. He said he negotiated Ulloa’s signing with
the Spanish club CD Castellón but he “did not bill a
single cent to the club in exchange for my services.”
Iván Zamorano, a retired footballer from Chile who
was named to the FIFA 100 list of the world’s best
living players.
His image rights were held by Fut Bam International
Ltd. when he was a star player for Real Madrid in the
1990s. Fut Bam is based in the British Virgin Islands,
which has an e ective tax rate of zero, and lists
Zamorano as its owner.
Fut Bam granted temporary custody of those image
rights to Real Madrid in exchange for a total payment
of $195 million pesetas —roughly $1.3 million dollars.
The club was to pay Fut Bam $45 million pesetas in
1993 and then another $50 million pesetas
($330,000) a year between 1994 and 1996.
Gabriel Iván Heinze, who is from Argentina and
played with Manchester United and Real Madrid,
among other teams.
In 2005, while he was with Manchester United,
Heinze created the Galena Mills Corp., also in the
British Virgin Islands. That same year he signed a
contract with Puma AG that guaranteed him
payments of at least $1 million over five years. The
payments from Puma were channeled through the
o shore company. The records show that Heinze’s
mother was listed as the company’s owner.
The Puma deal ended in 2008, a few months a er
Heinze joined Real Madrid. The Mossack Fonseca
files also show that the former footballer also held a
Swiss bank account with UBS.
A spokesman for Heinze said that “the set up of
Galena Mills was a part of a succession (inheritance)
strategy, just in case something bad could happen to
Heinze.” The spokesman said Galena Mills “paid all
the necessary taxes” in the countries where it was
supposed to pay taxes.
Team e ort
The secret documents also expose how one club,
Real Sociedad in Spain, paid its players in a way that
appears to have allowed both the club and its
players to slash their tax payments.
The documents show that the club shelled out
millions of dollars each year to the foreign players in
its employ, even as the players reported a fraction of
those payments to the Spanish government. Real
Sociedad paid seven of its foreign players that way
between 2000 and 2008, the records show, via
companies and banks in Niue, Panama, the British
Virgin Islands, the Netherlands, Switzerland and
Jersey in the Channel Islands.
Spanish authorities were told that Darko Kovacevic,
a well-known Serbian footballer, was earning about
$2,000 a month from the team during the 2006-2007
season, according to an online news site,
ExtraConfidential.com, which in December published
parts of an investigative report by a Spanish
prosecutor . Mossack Fonseca’s files show that that
the team paid Kovacevic roughly $1.4 million that
season through IMFC Licensing in The Netherlands.
Real Sociedad’s general manager, Iñaki Otegi,
declined to answer questions about the club’s
payment practices. But the club’s press o icer said
that Otegi “asked me to phone you and tell you that
this sort of practice of using companies abroad to
remunerate the foreign players was and is a common
practice in all Spanish soccer clubs.”
Contributor to this story: Bastian Obermayer
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