Football, corporate ownership, and conflicts of interest: Dark spaces and black boxes.

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Abstact

The paper takes the move from the recent (2018) essay by the global study jointly undertaken by the International Association of Lawyers (UIA) in partnership with the ICSS INSIGHT and the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA). Shockingly, the preliminary findings of that study reveal that only three countries have a dedicated body that has specific oversight of investment and ownership in its football clubs and only two nations are able to fully track and monitor the money behind club investments and ownership. Meanwhile, the vast majority of countries do not have any mechanism in which to understand the source of a club’s investment and rely on generic laws with most ‘assuming’ that any financial scrutiny falls under the country’s existing club licensing system. On the premises of the above, the paper traces the case of Italy Serie A and it develops some considerations regarding the negative consequences of the lack of transparency (e.g., purchasing clubs for non-sporting reasons, such as transforming them into vehicles for money laundering, third-party investment funds and sports betting fraud).

Keywords: Corporate Governance, Conflict of Interests, Football

JEL Classification: G34

Received: 30.11.2018

Accepted: 07.12.2018

How to cite: Faraudello, A., & Gelmini, L. (2019). Football, corporate ownership, and conflicts of interest: Dark spaces and black boxes. Corporate Governance: Search for the Advanced Practices, 314-325. https://doi.org/10.22495/cpr19p17