An organization or professional club engaged in sporting competitions or related activities, handling player contracts, sponsorships, and overall event operations.
Main/
Sports Club
[]
Code
AT0069
[]
Name
Sports Club
[]
Version
1.0
[]
Category
Corporate & Commercial Entities
[]
Created
2025-03-12
[]
Modified
2025-04-02
Related Techniques
Some clubs, particularly those aiming to attract star players or address financial issues, accept overvalued image rights fees. This practice allows criminals to disguise illicit funds as legitimate payments, complicating financial institutions' oversight of these transactions.
Sports clubs, whether complicit or unwitting, provide a high-profile platform for laundering:
- Criminals disguise illicit funds as official club revenues (e.g., ticket sales, merchandise, sponsorships).
- The club’s public stature often deters deeper inquiry by financial institutions.
- This enables illicit proceeds to be integrated into legitimate operations, making it harder to detect their criminal origin.
Criminals funnel illicit proceeds through sports clubs by:
- Structuring sponsorship or advertising deals that appear legitimate but are funded with unlawful capital.
- Exploiting weak due diligence on the sponsors’ backgrounds or beneficial ownership.
This obscures the funds' true origin, complicating financial institutions' efforts to identify illicit inflows and verify ultimate beneficiaries.