Football’s Russian mafia (& other dodgy dealers)
"FOOTBALL IS being systematically carved up by
moguls with clear or suspected roots in the former Soviet Union",
commented the right-wing Daily Mail (2 September) in an exposé of
football’s new round of dodgy deals. "Their mission is to corner the
global market in talent.
"West Ham’s shadowy acquisition of the Argentines
Carlitos Tevez and Javier Mascherano from the Brazilian club
Corinthians, via an intermediary called Media Sports Investment (MSI),
marks an historic moment in the development of the world’s most popular
game. Overwhelming evidence suggests that investors who recoil at the
huge cost of buying clubs outright… have devised a cheaper strategy to
buy up talent outside the overheated European market and work their way
in through the side doors of smaller clubs such as West Ham".
MSI is being investigated in Brazil over concerns of
money laundering. MSI is a subsidiary of a secret offshore company based
in the Virgin Islands being investigated by Brazil’s organised crime
taskforce after its takeover in 2004 of Corinthians, one of the giants
of South American football.
According to a report obtained by The Guardian
newspaper, "sufficient indices [exist] to show that the partnership MSI-Corinthians
is being used to practice the laundering of money". (14 September) The
report alleges that money was laundered on behalf of the Russian
oligarch Boris Berezovsky.
The transfer of these two gifted footballers to West
Ham, allegedly without the prior knowledge of the manager of the club,
is a dangerous new situation for football. It puts into the shade even
the widespread dodgy dealings of bungs and bribes. West Ham has not
acquired these players, they are owned by MSI. West Ham will not make
one penny out of future deals. MSI will control the future of these
players, including lucrative image rights. In the future agencies such
as MSI may well own and control the movement of all the top players in
the world and lease them to clubs, and receive huge amounts when the
players move on to another club.
Who are the main players and dealers behind MSI and
the attempts to control West Ham United? Mr Berezovsky is one. He was
one of Russia’s wealthiest and most powerful capitalists until he fell
out with Vladimir Putin after his election to the presidency of Russia
in 2000. He had to flee Russia and take exile in England, living in
Mayfair and the leafy suburbs of Surrey (the poor soul is down to his
last £800m).
Berezovsky has recently been given a UK passport
(obviously a lot easier to acquire if you are a multi-millionaire crook
than if you are a working-class asylum seeker). Another man being linked
to the takeover of West Ham is Badri Patarkatsishvili, a former
Communist Party official from Georgia. He teamed up with Berezovsky
during the 1990s and bought up the under-priced aluminum and oil
industries, which they bled dry of finances.
Another shady character in the saga is Pini Zahavi,
an Israeli sports journalist and dodgy football agent. He was involved
in the very lucrative deal which took Rio Ferdinand from West Ham to
Leeds United and then onto Manchester United. Zahavi was involved in
brokering Roman Abramovich’s deal to take over Chelsea. He also helped
Russian Alexander Gaydamak buy into Portsmouth Football Club.
Linked to the dealings and the alleged money
laundering is Kia Joorabchian, an old colleague involved in the looting
of the economy of the former Soviet Union along with Berezovsky. He was
involved in a joint manoeuvre with Berezovsky to take control of
Kommersant, an influential newspaper in the post-Soviet era. In 1999,
Joorabchian bought 85% of the newspaper though a company registered in
the Virgin Islands. At the time, he said that the takeover did not
involve other parties, but within months control had passed to
Berezovsky.
Joorabchian has stated that this was the last deal
that he undertook with Berezovsky and denies being involved with MSI.
However, according to The Guardian, he appeared to let the cat out of
the bag: "We have invested in a wonderful football club in Brazil,
Corinthians. We have invested in the Brazil team with Boris Berezovsky".
Money, he added, "has a wonderful habit of flowing where it feels
comfortable".
These parasites are trying to get their noses in the
trough of the multi-billion pound football industry. The Premier
League’s deals – with Sky, Setanta and other television companies – will
net, with overseas rights, £2.5 billion over the next three years. Even
a middle-ranking team such as West Ham has become a lucrative target.
Berezovsky may also want to go into battle with his former friend and
now hated rival, Abramovich, the gangster capitalist turned football
supremo, who owns and controls Chelsea in South West London.
Another attraction of West Ham is the
80,000-capacity Olympic stadium being built down the road in Stratford.
Berezovsky or some other multi-millionaire would love to get their hands
on this asset, paid for by taxpayers, on the cheap.
The Daily Mail summed it up: "… powerful
international investors are buying players as tools to take over clubs.
Not that allegiance matters much these days in the Premiership. Chelsea,
Manchester United, Portsmouth, Aston Villa and Fulham are all owned by
tycoons who picked them off a menu of portfolio opportunities.
"If the West Ham deal goes through, Joorabchian and
MSI will have a conveyor belt from the Premiership to the Brazilian and
Argentinean leagues. Moguls everywhere will see that buying debt-ridden
clubs cheaply and then using them as holding stations for superstars is
a profitable new way to build an empire… to them, football is a
commodity-with-glamour. Instead of oil and aluminum their business is
talent, which transcends boundaries".
From one of the most rabid mouthpieces – from the
nationalist standpoint of British capitalism – we see big business in
the football industry exposed. The fans need to unite to drive these
parasites out of the now tarnished game to reclaim it once more as the
people’s beautiful game.
John Reid
Author of Reclaim the Game!
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