Football Leaks Roundup: All the revelations you need to know

Lately, the world has been uncovering some unbelievable scandals and controversies in the sport.

The WikiLeaks of the footballing world, Football Leaks, a website that has spilled the beans on player transfers and several other parts of the multibillion-pound footballing empire that has not been released to the public, since 2015 has returned with more behind the scenes news for the month of November 2018.

We at Khel Now bring you a round-up of some of the major claims made by Football leaks since 1st November 2018:

The formation of the European Super League:

Almost as though it was taken right out of an episode of “Narcos”, seven of the world’s biggest football clubs were asked to join forces in a cartel like manner to boycott their national league and fight for the formation of a European Super League that featured the top clubs from around the continent.

According to a document that Real Madrid received earlier this month, 16 top teams are set to sign a document that would push through the formation of such a league form the 2021 season. One of these teams is FC Bayern Munich.

However, the publication reports that Bayern’s involvement in this league goes much deeper, with their president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge having advocated the formation of the league in a meeting of the European Club Association in 2016, where he insinuated that unless the bigger clubs got more money and power from UEFA, they would start their own league.

The formation of such a league poses several threats of its own. Smaller or midsized clubs would suffer with the massive decrease in quality of the national leagues. UEFA has also suggested that players involved with the European Super League would not be allowed to take part in international FIFA competitions.

It remains to be seen if there is any substance to these reports. However, if they are true, football as we know it could change forever.

Gianni Infantino’s failure to clean up football:

The FIFA President hasn't been able to clean up the dirty work yet

Gianni Infantino took up the office of President of FIFA, following his predecessor, Sep Blatter’s dramatic fall from grace and the revelations of widespread corruption within the ranks of the association and all its subsidiaries.

In his election campaign Infantino pushed all the right buttons, with promises of a clean and corruption free FIFA that would maintain the innocence of the beautiful game. However, once Infantino took up office, it quickly became evident that he was never going to clean up the office, rather bend it to his will.

Infantino set up the “Forward Program” which saw FIFA promise to distribute around half of its income to officials from over 200 associations who were also electoral delegates. This was essentially what Blatter did in his time in charge of the association, but Infantino had found a way to do it by the book.

A FIFA financial report in 2017 showed that the Forward program was up and running smoothly while in fact, it had not started. In an email retrieved by Football Leaks, Infantino had admitted the failure of the program and order the expedition of payments.

PSG and Manchester City’s FFP escapes:

In the spring of 2014, when Gianni Infantino was still the General Secretary of UEFA under the leadership of Platini, who was the president of UEFA, Paris Saint Germain and Manchester City found themselves in violation of the newly placed Financial Fair Play rules that had been introduced from the 2013-2014 season.

Paris Saint Germain found themselves 115-million Euros in violation of the rules following their investment on players registering greater losses on the books than their profits permitted. Manchester City faced a similar problem, finding themselves 188-million Euros in violation.

Gianni Infantino allegedly went behind the back of UEFA and tried to broker a settlement deal with the clubs and providing the heads with confidential information.

According to the norms of the FFP rules, both teams would have to be banned from the Champions League and other UEFA competitions, given the extent of their infraction.

However, Infantino’s intervention, evidenced by emails retrieved by Football Leaks ensured that both clubs got off with 20-million Euro punishments.

Kylian M’Bappe’s mega bucks:

M’Bappe is the highest valued teenager in football

At the age of 19. Kylian M’Bappe is already a two-time Ligue 1 winner, a World Cup winner and is undoubtedly the next big thing in football. The youngster does not have an agent unlike many players of his calibre, but the documents released by Football Leaks show that he is more than aware of his value.

M’Bappe is the highest valued teenager in football at 180 million Euros, following his transfer to PSG. However, the Frenchman had a host of other demands, some of which did not make it to the contract.

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He demanded that if he was to win the Ballon D’Or, he would automatically become PSG’s highest payed player, over the likes of Neymar and Cavani. He also demanded a private jet to be at his disposal for 50 hours per week and financial compensation if his transfer meant that PSG would face FFP punishment that would see them out of the Champions League.

Mino Raiola’s role in Paul Pogba’s transfer:

As part of the transfer procedure, Juventus signed a contract with Mino Riola that would see the agent of Paul Pogba, create hype around his client driving his price up to meet the 90-million Euro valuation that Juventus had placed on him.

As part of this contract, Riola would pocket 18-million Euros from Juventus in addition to three million euros for every five million that his client sold for above the valuation.

Riola however, signed a contract with Manchester United in 2016 tasking him with negotiating with Juventus for the transfer of his client, throwing up an obvious case of conflict of interest. Football Leaks’ documents show that Manchester United was unaware that Riola was under contract with Juventus when they signed Pogba for a then world record fee.

Sergio Ramos' failed drug test:

Real Madrid CF's captain, Sergio Ramos reportedly failed a drug test prior to the 2017 UCL final against Juventus, which the Spanish club would go on to win. The failed drug test was excused by UEFA and covered up with Ramos going unpunished.

The defender tested positive for Dexametasone, which is permitted for use provided UEFA are informed in advance. However, since Real Madrid failed to inform UEFA, Ramos stood in breach of the rule. The infringement was reportedly excused by the association who saw it as a slip up on the part of the Real Madrid club doctor.

Ramos' then teammate, Cristiano Ronaldo also reportedly failed a dope test eariler that year which was also covered up.

Cristiano Ronaldo's rape case's new evidence:

The Portuguese's has been in involved in sexual assualt scandal for quite sometime

Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the greatest players to ever grace a football pitch and following his transfer to Juventus, has been showing fans of the club glimpses of his magic. However, things have not been as good off the pitch for the Portuguese striker.

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Ronaldo was accused of having raped a woman at a nightclub in Las Vegas back in 2009. The 33-year-old rubbished these claims but new Football leaks documents show that there is more to the story than the media are currently being made aware of. 

Ronaldo paid the woman a large amount of money in exchange for her silence. Football laks discovered an older version of a questionnaire that had been prepared for Ronaldo by his lawyers wherein which he admitted to having raped the woman. Ronaldo's lawyers have since claimed that the documents were fabricated but have failed to produce evidence of the same.