Financial Transparency Coalition

Early this morning in Switzerland, some of the most influential officials in the worldwide soccer body, FIFA, were probably waking up or getting ready for breakfast. What happened next was, most certainly, unannounced and unexpected.

In the January 2015 Taxcast: how offshore is ruining the ‘Beautiful Game': the Taxcast scrutinises football’s own goal. Also: how banks with criminal convictions are being allowed to continue to handle our money, how people may be allowed to apply for anonymity in the UK’s new register of beneficial owners of companies to be introduced in 2016, and the meeting of the world’s most powerful in that bastion of transparency, Davos, Switzerland. Plus more scandal and unique analysis.

The biggest sport in the world is football. Soccer, that is. Unfortunately, it also offers a paradigmatic example of the poisonous effects of a lack of financial integrity. There are a great many people with a stake in the outcomes of football – for example, the World Cup held in South Africa earlier this year has verified viewing figures of 715 million women, men and children (around one in ten of the world’s population), having been broadcast in 214 countries. The sport’s world governing body FIFA estimate there were 26 billion World Cup match viewings – enough for each...

LONDON—A May 2010 report from Christian Aid, Blowing the Whistle: Time’s Up for Financial Secrecy, reveals how the same tax-haven secrecy that allows football club owners to hide their business practices – and even their identities – is also facilitating massive tax dodging in developing countries.