Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1290275
4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 SEPTEMBER 2020 NEWS Post of General Practitioners within the AACC Active Ageing and Community Care within the Parliamentary Secretariat for Active Ageing and Persons with Disability requires the services of General Practitioners on Full-Time or Part-Time basis. Application forms can be found on the Government recruitment portal:- www.recruitment.gov.mt. Closing date is Monday 28 September. For further queries, please contact us on hrelderly.mfcs@gov.mt or 22788450 KURT SANSONE FOOTBALL clubs will have to step up internal controls amid growing attention to criminal activity in sports by anti-money laundering agencies. The Malta Football Association is working on a framework to in- troduce more accountability and corporate oversight in top-tier clubs, a source close to the gov- erning football body told Malta- Today. Football was identified recently in a Europol report as a money laundering paradise for organised crime networks. In its more so- phisticated form, criminals take possession of clubs through gen- erous sponsorships and eventual ownership. And Malta's football scene, small as it may be, is also at risk of criminal activity that seeks to launder dirty money through the popular sport. "Clubs, like NGOs, are very of- ten flimsy organisations that are vulnerable. They are also organ- isations where professionalism mixes with passion and voluntary work, which makes it harder to zoom in on wrongdoing," sources in law enforcement who shared their thoughts with this newspa- per suggested. Only last year, professional football was identified for the first time as a risk sector along- side investor citizenship schemes and freeports, in the EU's su- pranational risk assessment on money laundering and terrorist financing. The EU report put its finger on the difficulty that law enforce- ment agencies face when deal- ing with criminal activity in the sports realm "As in the art world, criminals in the sports world are not al- ways motivated by economic gain. Social prestige, appearing with celebrities, and the prospect of dealing with authority figures may also attract private investors with dubious intentions," the re- port noted. This may ring true for some football administrators in Malta that have poured large sums of money in new signings and the payment of good wages to play- ers with little apparent income to sustain the operation. Sifting the wheat from the chaff is not easy and even where the red flags go up, clamping down will always entail extensive intel- ligence gathering. The EU report argued that cer- tain obligations should be estab- lished, such as requiring clubs, federations, and confederations, including those who provide ad- visory, auditing, bookkeeping, and consulting services in this area, to communicate suspicious transactions to the respective na- tional financial intelligence units. Sources close to the football scene in Malta said the matter was of concern, which is why the MFA is working on a framework to help clubs create corporate structures with checks and bal- ances to try and ward off criminal activity or identify it. Football most targeted Football is the most targeted and manipulated sport by inter- national organised crime groups because if its worldwide popular- ity, financial dimension and large turn-over betting market at- tached to it. The size of the glob- al betting market is estimated at €1.7 trillion, with football on its own accounting for €895 million. Europol warned that South-East Asian, and particularly Chinese, networks were trying to acquire smaller football clubs in financial difficulty for the purpose of sport manipulation. "Individuals and companies are involved in taking control, or attempting to do so, of EU foot- ball clubs for the purpose of bet- ting-related match-fixing. Details of the concrete involvement of Chinese organised crime groups operating in or having an impact on the EU in sports corruption remain a major intelligence gap," Europol said. Buying or sponsoring clubs Europol said the more 'profes- sional' method used by certain crime groups was to buy a club, or sponsor it to an extent of gain- ing effective control over the team. The targeted club is bought for the sole purpose of fixing match- es and to launder money. "High illegal gains are secured through the execution of an extended se- ries of manipulated matches for betting purposes," Europol said. This is a growing trend espe- cially in football, where clubs of lower divisions, sometimes beset by heavy financial problems, are taken over by foreign individuals and companies. Europol said that it is common- ly observed that the new inves- tors of a club will transfer specif- ically selected foreign players in the targeted teams and use them to execute match-fixing schemes. With money laundering red flags going up, football clubs may have to step up "Malta's football scene, small as it may be, is also at risk of criminal activity that seeks to launder dirty money through the popular sport"