European football clubs risk sanction breaches in Russian transfer deals; investigation

An international investigation led by Dutch investigative platform Follow the Money reported on Tuesday that several football clubs, including Dutch ones, made transfer deals worth millions of euros with Russian clubs, potentially breaching EU sanctions imposed on Russia.

For their investigation, Follow the Money and its partners scrutinized all international transfers involving Russian clubs since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. They used data from crowd-sourced football databases for details on players, clubs, and transaction amounts. They also gathered information about club owners and directors from various public sources, including the Russian business registry and official club documents.

The investigation found that 28 EU football clubs, including prominent teams like French Olympique Lyonnais and OCG Nice, Spanish Real Sociedad, Italian Torino and Udinese, and Dutch PSV Eindhoven and NEC Nijmegen, might have breached sanctions against Russia.

Follow the Money reported that some clubs could be directly violating EU sanctions by engaging in transfers with Russian clubs linked to Putin’s regime or Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Some clubs are also suspected of improperly holding onto transfer funds meant for Russian teams.

“The issue is that you are not permitted to make economic resources available, and a player is an economic resource. Making a player available ‘for free’ is also prohibited because a sanctioned club can make money with such a free player and win more matches, for example,” sanctions lawyer Heleen over de Linden explained in the investigation.

The Dutch football association KNVB, along with other national associations, might also be implicated in sanction violations by managing funds for club transfers, potentially breaching EU sanctions.

This situation arose when PSV Eindhoven purchased player Guus Til from Spartak Moscow in 2022. Facing Rabobank's refusal to transfer a portion of the fee, PSV temporarily deposited the money with KNVB. This action, seen as stockpiling funds for a Russian entity, could violate EU sanctions, potentially involving both PSV and the KNVB.

The investigation also revealed that many clubs claim that FIFA and UEFA greenlit the transfers, while the latter points its fingers at the clubs, arguing that they bear the responsibility for complying with sanctions.

1/ Our publication today is part of the #OffsideDeals. Led by Follow the Money, this is the first international investigation into football transfers with Russia since 2022. https://t.co/TGjhaSoZfi

— Follow the Money EU (@FTM_eu) December 12, 2023