Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/764316
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 18 DECEMBER 2016 8 MAT THEW VELLA MALTA'S jealously-guarded tax rules are once again the fo- cus of new leaks, this time from a leak of a cache of 18.6 million documents on tax avoidance and dirty deals on the sale and own- ership of football players. The massive cross-border in- vestigation is based on docu- ments obtained by the German news magazine Der Spiegel, revealing how football agents, middlemen and club officials are maximising their riches by 'sell- ing' footballers… on paper. The leaks throw a spotlight over a Maltese company's role in facilitating the mysterious and inflated transfer of Romanian right-back Cristian Manea and the commission allegedly nego- tiated by the legendary football- er Gheorghe Hagi. According to the documents, the Maltese company Dito Trad- ing and Consulting was used to claim a consultancy fee that was far higher than the value of the 16-year-old player. Manea had played only five games for Hagi's local side, Vii- torul Constanta, when he was picked to play for the Roma- nian national team in a friendly against Albania in June 2014. He was only valued at €300,000 by the website Transfermarkt.com at the time. Three weeks after the friendly, on 23 June, 2014, Manea was transferred from Viitorul to Cypriot club Apollon Limassol for the handsome fee of €2.5 million – a high figure for an underage player. The "secret" deal took place without any public announce- ment, and Manea continued to play for Viitorul as though the huge transfer had never even happened. What the Football Leaks docu- ments reveal is that a month be- fore the deal, on 15 May, 2014, Viitorul – represented by Hagi as chairman – signed an agree- ment with the Maltese company Dito to "evaluate" the transfer of Manea's rights from Viitorul. In exchange, Hagi accepted to pay Dito the difference of any sum over €1.5 million from the Manea transfer. So when Apollon offered €2.5 million for Manea, Hagi paid the Maltese company €1 million as a consulting fee – at 40% of the fee, almost double the usual commissions agents are paid. So who owns Dito Trading? The company is tax-resident in Malta, but it is owned by the Maltese legal firm E&S Consultancy (through its sub- sidiary Solv In- ternational) and Swiss football agent Marc Rau- tenberg. Rautenberg is the registered director of Lian Sports – which mainly manages players from the Balkan countries – and which is also registered in Malta at the same address as Dito. TheBlackSea.eu – one of the online newspapers collaborating on Football Leaks – believes the cash paid to Lian Sports, whose News MALTA AT THE CENTRE OF 'PAPER' FOOTBALLER TRANSFERS 'Football Leaks' files show Malta company used for 'phantom' transfers of footballers Gheorghe Hagi – the 'Maradona of the Carpathians' – owns Viitorul Constanta. His team accepted €2.5 million for Cristian Manea (top) from Apollon Limassol and paid a €1 million consultancy fee to a Maltese company owned by football agents close to the Apollon ownership. But Manea never played for Apollon Malta's system of tax rebates – up to 85% – for foreign shareholders, leaves some €200 million for the State after billions in profits get booked into holding companies on the island. And it is this main attraction that has so many foreign-owned companies registered in Malta. Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez was accused by the Barcelona public prosecutor of evading more than €900,000 in tax, when in 2013 he booked a total of €1.1 million in profits in his Malta tax-registered firm. It is claimed he simulated the transfer of image rights to the company, Numidia Trading, and failed to declare his earnings in full. The Chilean footballer is the 99% shareholder in Numidia Trading, the other 1% held by the Amicorp financial services Taxman chases Sanchez