Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/764316
9 firm, based in Ta' Xbiex. The Barcelona prosecutor accuses Sanchez of "simulating" the transfer of his image rights to a company described as a "purely instrumental entity" used to facilitate "fraud committed against the Spanish Treasury". maltatoday, SUNDAY, 18 DECEMBER 2016 News owner is Abdilgafar Ramadani, allows him and other associates to use Apollon as a "third-party owner" of footballers. Indeed, despite the €2.5 mil- lion transfer to Apollon Limas- sol, Manea never went to the club. The transfer move was arguably not intended to sell the 'player' but only his 'rights'. Third-party ownership, as it is known, is now forbidden under FIFA rules. But as it happens, clubs can sell a player "on paper" to one club, even though he is destined to play somewhere else. Indeed in June 2015, Reu- ters announced that the now 17-year-old Manea had signed for Chelsea FC for €3.1 mil- lion. But Viitorul also said that Manea's destination was "still under discussion". That same year, Manea ended up at Mou- scron in Belgium on loan from Chelsea. But Manea was still not even Chelsea's or Viitorul's player: he was still signed to Apollon Limassol. TheBlackSea.eu suggests that Apollon Limassol appears to be transferring football play- ers for non-sporting reasons. "International football players are bought and loaned out by Cypriot club Apollon Limas- sol in a scheme where they do not even need to set foot on the island of Cyprus. Instead the Cypriot club buys them out in what could be an 'investment' for non-sporting reasons. The players do not become part of the team. Their presence at the club exists only on paper, not on the field." From May 2015, FIFA banned the practice of third-party own- ership – where a party inde- pendent of the player and his club held the 'economic rights' to the player. What this means is the 'rights-holder' gets to ex- ercise influence over the play- er's future movements. One of Apollon's shareholders with 16% is Sliva Trading, an offshore company owned by the Israeli super-agent Pini Zahavi, 73 (pictured left). He has been connected to the Maltese company Gol Football Malta, which paid €8.5 million to bail out the indebted Belgian side Royal Mouscron, and then sold it on for just €10 to another Maltese company, Latimer International Limited, owned by Zahavi's nephew Adar and Solv International. Two of Zahavi's relatives, Adar and Gil, sit on the board of directors of Royal Mouscron, where footballer Cristian Manea now plays: the argument is that both Apollon and Royal Excel Mouscron are part of a carousel used by Zahavi's network to move players from place to place. He is photographed here with Lian Sports owner Abdilgafar Ramadani (right). The person at the centre is unconnected to the Football Leaks files. Super-agents calling the shots on 'paper' footballers