Buying Leverage, Not Just Reputation: State Capital in Sport, Dependency, and the Political Cost of Enforcement

Abstract

“Sportswashing” is usually described as a reputational project: a state with a poor human rights record buys a club, a tournament or a tour, and audiences abroad come to associate it with trophies rather than prisons. I contend that this account is incomplete, and that the more consequential product of state capital in sport is leverage. By leverage I mean the capacity to raise the political, financial or institutional cost of acting against the investing state, a capacity created by making decision-makers, or the people they answer to, dependent on continued investment. Dependency of this kind is built through local government co-investment, regeneration and jobs, national trade and investment ties, broadcast and league revenue, and governing bodies’ commercial contracts and offices. I set out five testable markers of leverage and apply them to three cases. The first is Manchester City, where evidence of concealed owner funding surfaced only through Football Leaks, the archive taken by the Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto; where the city council co-owned a property joint venture with the club’s owner; and where, in the week of the Premier League Commission’s findings, Emirati officials were reported to have linked the decision to “the bilateral state relationship”. The second is Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which gave “legally binding assurances” in 2021 that the Saudi state would not control Newcastle United and described itself in 2023 as “a sovereign instrumentality” of that state. The third is Qatar, whose World Cup award, labour reforms, broadcasting dispute and offices within European football’s governance show leverage running through institutions. The evidence supports each marker in at least one case, most strongly where dependency is contractual or institutional; officials’ silence rests on small samples, and enforcement delay is partly offset by findings that were in fact made. The weakest link is causation: the record shows dependency and timing, not proof that any regulator changed a decision because of it. The paper keeps allegation, journalism, court finding, regulatory finding and sanction apart. It ends with recommendations on disclosure, recusal, ownership tests, timely enforcement and protection for whistleblowers.

Keywords: sportswashing; leverage; state capital; sovereign wealth funds; asymmetric interdependence; Manchester Life; Abu Dhabi United Group; Public Investment Fund; Newcastle United; LIV Golf; FIFA; Aramco; Qatar 2022; ILO; beIN; beoutQ; WTO DS567; European Football Clubs; enforcement fragmentation; preferential tax regimes; Football Leaks; Rui Pinto; whistleblower protection

Methods and Sources

The paper uses a four-tier hierarchy of sources. The first tier is decisions, legislation and registers: the redacted Core Decision of the Premier League’s independent Commission, the WTO panel report in DS567, the decision of the ILO Governing Body of 8 November 2017, UEFA’s published settlement decisions, the UK Supreme Court’s judgment in Reyes v Al-Malki, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Diplomatic Privileges Act 1964, and the London Diplomatic List. The second tier is official statements and documents: releases by the Premier League, FIFA, UEFA, the PGA Tour, European Football Clubs (formerly the European Club Association), beIN Media Group, Manchester City Council, political parties, the US Senate and rights organisations. The third tier is named investigative journalism and public-interest research, chiefly The Guardian, the BBC, The i Paper, The Mill, Middle East Eye, openDemocracy, The National, the Associated Press, the University of Sheffield’s Manchester Offshored report and FairSquare’s Easy Cities to Buy. The fourth tier is peer-reviewed scholarship and expert commentary.

Five kinds of statement are kept apart throughout. An allegation is a claim by a party, complainant or source. Journalism is a claim published by a named outlet on its own reporting. A court finding is a determination by a criminal or civil court. A regulatory finding is a determination by a sporting or administrative body, such as the Commission, UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB), the ILO Governing Body or a WTO panel. A sanction is a penalty actually imposed. No finding of wrongdoing has been made against any of the politicians or officials named in this paper. None of them is a party to the Premier League proceedings, and the Commission’s findings against Manchester City are under appeal.

Where a source relays another outlet’s reporting, the note says so. Two items are excluded because I could not access them: reports in The Daily Telegraph that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) threatened specific UK investments, and a Telegraph report about a senior official’s resignation. Where The Guardian has relayed Telegraph reporting, I have not relied on it. Inferences that are my own analysis, rather than statements of a source, are introduced with the words “In my analysis” or marked Author’s analysis. The Commission’s appendices are unpublished, so findings are cited to the paragraph of the Core Decision that states them. Facts are stated as at 5 October 2026.

I. Introduction

In 2015 a Portuguese man in his twenties, Rui Pinto, began breaking into the email systems of football clubs, agents and investment funds. What he took became Football Leaks, an archive reported at more than 70 million documents. From November 2018, Der Spiegel and its partners in the European Investigative Collaborations network published emails from inside Manchester City suggesting that most of the club’s Abu Dhabi sponsorship had been funded not by the sponsors but by the club’s owner.¹ In December 2018 the Premier League opened an investigation. On 29 September 2026, nearly eight years later, its independent Commission found that of £949.94 million in Abu Dhabi sponsorship income the club had recorded, £830.69 million was in truth funded by its owner, Abu Dhabi United Group.² The club denies wrongdoing and has appealed.

Pinto’s path ran the other way. Before his arrest he had been cooperating with France’s national financial prosecutor. He was arrested in Budapest in January 2019 on a Portuguese European arrest warrant and extradited in March.³ In Portugal he spent a year in pre-trial detention, was released to house arrest after giving prosecutors access to a mass of encrypted, unpublished documents, and entered a witness protection programme in exchange for his cooperation on other cases.⁴ In September 2023 a Lisbon court convicted him of nine offences: unauthorised access to computer systems, interception of correspondence, and attempted extortion of the investment fund Doyen Sports. It rejected his defence that he had acted as a whistleblower on the extortion count and imposed a four-year suspended sentence,⁵ which the Lisbon Court of Appeal upheld.⁶ In a second trial, over access to the emails of Benfica and other organisations, he was acquitted of all 241 charges on 29 April 2026: the court held the indictment invalid because it breached the rule against being tried twice for the same facts, and said his dignity had not been respected.⁷ The prosecution has appealed.⁸

Pinto is often compared to Julian Assange, and in my analysis the comparison is instructive mainly for where it breaks down. Both obtained material unlawfully, both were prosecuted for it, and in both cases institutions acted on what they disclosed. But the United States alleged that Assange’s publication of unredacted names put human sources, among them local Afghans and Iraqis, journalists and dissidents, at “grave and imminent risk of serious physical harm”.⁹ That allegation remains disputed: the official who led the Pentagon’s review of the disclosures testified that he could not tie any death to them.¹⁰ Pinto’s disclosures concerned the finances of clubs, agents and investment funds: transactions that, on the Commission’s findings in City’s case, concealed where the money really came from. That is the kind of conduct financial regulation, including anti-money-laundering rules, exists to catch. He was convicted of attempted extortion, and that finding should be stated as plainly as the findings against the club. But the structure is the point of this paper. The evidence behind the most significant enforcement action against a state-owned club in English football did not reach the regulator through any disclosure the club, its sponsors or its public partners were obliged to make. It reached it through a crime. And the eight years between leak and findings gave every dependency described below time to work. In the week of the findings, Emirati officials were reported to have linked the decision to “the bilateral state relationship”,¹¹ and the Prime Minister said he “would be really concerned to lose” the club’s owners.¹²

None of this shows that anyone tried to change the outcome of a regulatory case, and I do not claim it does. It shows something the standard account of sportswashing explains poorly. That account treats state investment in sport as an effort to change what audiences think.¹³ The Manchester City case was not about audiences. It concerned how evidence of concealment reached a regulator, how long that took, and what the regulator’s decision might cost the people who depend on the investor.

I contend that sportswashing is better understood as buying leverage, not just reputation. State capital in sport creates dependencies: local authorities that co-invest, regions whose regeneration and jobs depend on continued spending, national governments seeking trade and investment, leagues and broadcasters whose revenues depend on the investor, and governing bodies whose commercial income or senior offices are tied to it. Each dependency raises the political cost of criticism and enforcement. Reputation is about what people think of a state. Leverage is about what decision-makers can afford to do about it.

Part II defines leverage and its markers. Parts III to V apply them to Manchester, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Part VI connects the argument to my thesis on preferential tax regimes, Part VII answers the main objections, Part VIII assesses the evidence, Part IX makes recommendations, and Part X concludes.

II. Defining Leverage

From Reputation to Dependency

The literature already contains the materials for a leverage account, though it rarely puts them together. Grix and Lee describe the use of sports mega-events by emerging states as “the politics of attraction”, a soft-power strategy aimed at foreign publics.¹⁴ Brannagan and Giulianotti show that the same strategy can produce “soft disempowerment” when it draws attention to abuses.¹⁵ Both accounts are about attraction and image. Boykoff’s theory of sportswashing broadens the frame: the practice is not confined to autocracies, and it includes authoritarian states funding teams inside democracies.¹⁶ Fruh, Archer and Wojtowicz go further. They argue that sportswashing can make fans, clubs and institutions complicit in the wrongdoing it helps to distract from, minimise or normalise.¹⁷ Chadwick, the term’s most prominent sceptic, places sport within a “geopolitical economy” in which “sport is merely the means to an end, not an end in itself”.¹⁸

The missing piece comes from international political economy. Albert Hirschman showed in 1945 that foreign trade can be a source of national power because it creates dependence: a partner that gains more from a relationship than it could easily replace will hesitate to jeopardise it.¹⁹ Keohane and Nye later separated “sensitivity”, the speed and cost with which one party is affected by another’s actions, from “vulnerability”, the cost of the alternatives open to it, and argued that asymmetric interdependence is a source of power.²⁰ Farrell and Newman showed that states positioned at the hubs of economic networks can turn those positions into coercive tools.²¹ Sport has hubs of its own: a handful of leagues, two dominant governing bodies, a few broadcasters, and the city authorities that own stadiums and land.

Definition

For this paper, leverage is the capacity of a state, or of a vehicle it controls, to raise the expected cost to a public official, regulator, league or governing body of acting against the state’s interests. That capacity comes from the decision-maker’s dependence, or its constituents’ dependence, on continued investment, revenue or cooperation that the state can withdraw or withhold. Three features of the definition matter.

First, leverage operates on decision-makers, not audiences. A reputational strategy succeeds when foreign publics think better of the state. A leverage strategy succeeds when the people who could criticise, regulate or sanction it find that doing so has become expensive, whatever the public thinks.

Second, leverage need not be used to exist. A dependency that is never mentioned can still shape what officials say and what regulators prioritise. That is why the evidence for leverage is often silence, delay or hedged language rather than an explicit threat. It is also why leverage is hard to prove, a point I return to in Part VII.

Third, leverage is created by the investment itself. Reputation may or may not follow; Qatar’s World Cup brought it intense criticism. Dependency accrues automatically with every pound invested in a city’s housing and every sponsorship signed with a governing body.

Channels of Dependency

State capital in sport generates dependency through five channels. Local co-investment and regeneration binds municipal authorities through joint ventures, land deals and stadium leases, and binds local politicians through jobs and visible renewal. National trade and investment ties bind central governments seeking inward investment, especially where sport ownership sits alongside larger sovereign commitments. League and broadcast revenue binds leagues and clubs whose income depends on a state-linked owner, sponsor or broadcaster. Governing-body commercial deals bind federations through sponsorship and hosting contracts. Institutional office places state-linked executives on the committees that write and enforce the rules.

Testable Markers

If the leverage thesis is right, five things should be observable. Each marker comes with the evidence that would count against it.

M1: Officials declining to criticise. Public officials with a stake in the investment decline to criticise the investing state’s conduct when asked, or defend it, more than comparable officials without that stake. Counter-indicator: officials with a stake criticise as readily as those without.

M2: Co-investment and joint ventures. Public bodies hold equity, land or contractual positions alongside the state-linked investor, so that a rupture would cost the public body directly. Counter-indicator: investment flows only into private assets, with no public counterparty.

M3: Pledges or threats timed to regulatory moments. Investment pledges, warnings or high-level contacts cluster around regulatory decisions affecting the state-linked owner. Counter-indicator: no such clustering, or investment continuing unchanged after adverse decisions.

M4: Governing bodies’ commercial dependence. Governing bodies that decide matters affecting the state derive material revenue from it, or award it hosting rights while holding commercial contracts with its entities. Counter-indicator: revenue from the state is immaterial, or the body rules against it.

M5: Enforcement delay, settlement or fragmentation. Enforcement against state-linked actors takes longer, ends more often in settlement, or splits across forums more than enforcement against others. Counter-indicator: timely enforcement ending in findings and sanctions.

The markers are meant to be falsifiable, and some of the evidence below cuts against them. The Premier League’s case against Manchester City, which reached findings despite every dependency described in Part III, is the obvious test.

III. Manchester: Leverage at City-Region Level

The Joint Venture

Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), the vehicle through which Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan bought Manchester City in 2008, did not stay inside the stadium. In 2014 Manchester City Council announced what it called a “£1bn deal” with ADUG to develop land between the Etihad Stadium and the city centre.²² The vehicle was a joint venture between the council and ADUG, the Manchester Life Development Company Limited. For more than a decade, then, the council that owns the Etihad Stadium has been in business with the owner of the stadium’s tenant.

The terms of the relationship emerged slowly. In July 2025 The Mill reported a “Collaboration Agreement” signed by the council in December 2015, which gave ADUG a right of first refusal over council land in Ancoats, New Islington, Holt Town and the Lower Medlock Valley until December 2025.²³ On 4 October 2026 The i Paper, working from documents first reported by The Mill, reported that the first-refusal area covered about two square miles and included the former Central Retail Park. The council bought that site in 2017 for £42.35 million, and it is now earmarked for the Prime Minister’s “Number 10 North”. According to The i Paper, the council and ADUG each put £750,000 towards a plan for the site that never materialised, and under the agreement the council could not offer the land to anyone else, so it stood largely undeveloped for about a decade.²⁴ A barrister instructed by a rival developer has given the opinion that the 2017 purchase was unlawful; the council disagrees and notes that the decision “has not been formally challenged”.²⁵

The financial case against the partnership was made most fully by researchers at the University of Sheffield in 2022. Their report, Manchester Offshored, found that council land had been let on 999-year leases at rates below comparable developments, that no affordable housing was required, that public loans supported the scheme, that the completed assets, worth “nearly £350 million”, sat in Jersey-domiciled subsidiaries, and that the overage arrangement had not been disclosed.²⁶ The authors concluded that the council had “‘sold the family silver too cheap’”, in “a transfer of public wealth to private hands that is difficult to justify as prudent”.²⁷ The council rejects this. It has said the criticism has been “debunked repeatedly”, that there was “zero market interest at the time of the sale”, and that it receives a “significant financial return … through profit-sharing arrangements”.²⁸ Its own review, published in July 2026, found “significant benefits” but “weaknesses in documentation, monitoring and assurance”, particularly in the profit-sharing terms.²⁹

The leverage argument does not depend on whether the council got a good price. It depends on the council having become a co-venturer, bound to a single partner over a large area of the city. That is marker M2 in its clearest form.

Declining to Criticise

The record of Manchester’s political leadership on the UAE’s human rights conduct is one of consistent reticence. In August 2016, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International coordinated an open letter to Sheikh Mansour, timed for the anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre, calling for the release of the jailed Emirati lawyer Mohamed al-Roken. It was signed by local MPs including Graham Stringer, Andrew Gwynne and Rebecca Long Bailey. Middle East Eye reported that Burnham, then Labour’s mayoral candidate, had been approached twelve days earlier and had not signed; his spokesman said he was “away”.³⁰

FairSquare’s 2023 report describes Manchester’s local politicians as “conspicuously silent”.³¹ It quotes a former Labour councillor, Ben Clay, as saying there was “a lot of sensitivity over the relationship [with Abu Dhabi]”, and that the leadership “did not like negativity and suppressed criticism of that relationship”.³² In 2023, asked on the Pod Save the UK podcast whether he had concerns about City’s owners, Burnham said: “I’ve got to judge what I see in Manchester … They’ve been huge partners for the city and they’ve improved a lot of lives here.”³³ In July 2026, ahead of the Greater Manchester mayoral by-election, Human Rights Watch and FairSquare wrote to every candidate asking whether they would raise the UAE’s alleged support for the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan and adopt human rights due diligence for UAE-linked investment.³⁴ I found no published reply from the winner, Bev Craig.

Silence is not proof of leverage. A council leader may sincerely believe that foreign policy is not her business. The marker is comparative, and here the comparison is available within the city. The MPs who signed the 2016 letter had no stake in the joint venture; the politicians closest to it are, in FairSquare’s words, “conspicuously silent”. Author’s analysis: that pattern is consistent with M1, though a sample this small cannot exclude other explanations, such as differing views on the proper role of local government.

The Regulatory Moment

The Premier League opened its investigation into Manchester City in December 2018, after Der Spiegel published Football Leaks material, and issued its complaint in February 2023.³⁵ On 29 September 2026 the Commission published its redacted Core Decision. It found that City had recorded £949.94 million of Abu Dhabi sponsorship income, of which £830.69 million was in truth funded by ADUG, and that the club’s explanation of certain arrangements had been “concocted well after the event”.³⁶ These are regulatory findings, not sanctions. A sanctions hearing is still to come, and City, which denies wrongdoing, has lodged an appeal.³⁷

What happened in the following week illustrates marker M3 more clearly than anything in the earlier record. The Prime Minister’s remark that he “would be really concerned to lose them” came the day after the findings.³⁸ The shadow sports minister, Louie French, asked “whether political pressure is being applied here and how it relates to the owners’ well-reported investments in Manchester”.³⁹ On 2 October the Liberal Democrats’ sport spokesperson, Anna Sabine MP, said that “when the Prime Minister leaps to the defence of a club’s owners within hours of a verdict, people are entitled to ask what their relationship is”. She asked Burnham to publish “the minutes of every meeting you have had with City Football Group, Abu Dhabi United Group or the UAE Government representatives about the club or investment in the city”, together with any hospitality received as mayor.⁴⁰ No such minutes had been published by 5 October 2026. Separately, the chair of the Independent Football Regulator, David Kogan, said that the regulator “has powers to assess the suitability of owners, directors and executives and we will use these powers where appropriate”.⁴¹

On 3 October The Guardian reported, citing Bloomberg, that Emirati officials had said the Premier League’s actions would “have an influence on the bilateral state relationship”.⁴² That is journalism relaying anonymous officials, and its weight should be judged accordingly. It is nonetheless the most direct evidence in this paper that a regulatory decision has been linked, by people speaking for the investing state, to the wider economic relationship. More specific reports of threatened projects originate with The Daily Telegraph, which I have not read, and I do not rely on them.

The national channel has a longer history. In July 2026, days after taking office, Burnham spoke to the UAE’s President, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed. Downing Street’s readout said he described the “incredible impact” of the UAE’s investment in Manchester and wanted to “strengthen trade between the two nations”.⁴³ FairSquare’s 2023 report argued that “the UK government has been a central figure in state takeovers of English football clubs”. It cites reporting that a senior trade envoy and a minister, both unnamed, said in May 2023 that Britain should “absolutely be embracing foreign investment into this country from the Middle East, whether it’s in football or green energy” as Qatari interests bid for Manchester United.⁴⁴

Immunity and the Limits of Leverage

One possible source of protection deserves precision, because it is often overstated. Manchester City’s chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, appears on the October 2026 London Diplomatic List as a Counsellor (Economic) at the UAE embassy. The list records that diplomatic staff “enjoy privileges and immunities under the Diplomatic Privileges Act (1964)”.⁴⁵ That immunity is personal. It protects the individual from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving state and, subject to exceptions, from its civil and administrative jurisdiction.⁴⁶ The Supreme Court in Reyes v Al-Malki confirmed that the scheme protects the diplomat in their personal capacity.⁴⁷ It confers nothing on ADUG, the club or the Emirate in a private regulatory proceeding brought under a league’s rules, and the Commission’s findings show that it did not stop the case.

This is the most important counter-indicator in the Manchester case. Every channel of dependency was present: a co-owned joint venture, a council-owned stadium, a regeneration story credited with helping to carry a mayor into Downing Street, a state-to-state investment relationship, and a chairman with diplomatic status. The Commission still reached findings. Leverage, on this evidence, does not buy immunity from a well-resourced private regulator applying contractual rules.

What it may buy is time and fragmentation. The investigation ran from December 2018 to September 2026, nearly eight years, and is not over. The Commission recorded its view that certain witnesses were not honest and that some arrangements were shams.⁴⁸ UEFA’s earlier case against the club had already foundered in large part at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2020, partly on limitation grounds.⁴⁹ Author’s analysis: the delay owes much to the club’s litigation strategy, which is lawful, and I do not attribute it to political pressure. But the length of the proceedings is what gives the political channel time to operate. That is the sense in which M5 is satisfied: enforcement occurred, but it was slow, and it remains divided between the League, a sanctions hearing, an appeal, a new statutory regulator and, potentially, HM Revenue and Customs.⁵⁰

IV. Saudi Arabia and the Public Investment Fund: Leverage at National and Governing-Body Level

Newcastle: From Refusal to “Legally Binding Assurances”

The Saudi case shows leverage operating on central government and, through it, on a league. In the spring of 2020 a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, agreed to buy 80 per cent of Newcastle United. The Premier League’s difficulty was control. On legal advice, it took the view that PIF ownership would mean that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself controlled the club and so had to pass the owners’ and directors’ test.⁵¹ That raised the prospect of failure, because a WTO panel had just found Saudi Arabia in breach of its obligations for failing to act against beoutQ, a pirate service that had broadcast Premier League matches whose regional rights belonged to the Qatari broadcaster beIN.⁵² In July 2020 the consortium withdrew.

What followed is documented in reporting by The Guardian and The Athletic, much of it based on freedom of information disclosures, and summarised by FairSquare. According to the Daily Mail, as relayed by FairSquare, the Crown Prince messaged Prime Minister Boris Johnson in June 2020: “We expect the English Premier League to reconsider and correct its wrong conclusion,” adding that “the EPL’s wrong conclusion will unfortunately have a negative impact on both our countries economic and commercial relations.”⁵³ The Guardian reported in 2022 that Johnson had “reportedly received complaints from Prince Mohammed” and that, when told in September 2020 that the deal would “hopefully” be approved, he replied “Brilliant.”⁵⁴ FOI emails obtained by Adam Crafton of The Athletic and quoted by FairSquare show the British ambassador in Riyadh writing that “there are a number of ways in which HMG can seek to facilitate dialogue with both the PIF and Saudi authorities on this to come up with the assurances the Premier League seek”. His deputy wrote that HMG “is not neutral about UK’s relationship with Saudi Arabia” and that the purchase “would be a valuable boost to the relationship and signal of intent for further Saudi investment in the north east”.⁵⁵

The Guardian’s 2022 investigation by David Conn added a ministerial dimension. It reported that Lord Grimstone, the investment minister, contacted the Premier League’s chair, Gary Hoffman, after the takeover stalled, and that his work “appears to have extended as far as trying to broker a solution to the Saudi piracy” of beIN’s rights.⁵⁶ Later FOI material reported by The Guardian and openDemocracy showed Grimstone promising the League a response from “the highest levels of the Saudi government” to its proposed way forward.⁵⁷ Throughout this period the government’s public position was that it “was not involved at any point in the takeover talks”.⁵⁸

The two League officials gave different accounts of what this amounted to. The Guardian reported that Hoffman told the clubs, after the deal was approved, that the government had put pressure on the League, but that the League had not been influenced. Its chief executive, Richard Masters, said: “There were conversations with government but there was no pressure applied.”⁵⁹ This is a genuine conflict in the record. The documents establish that ministers and diplomats worked to facilitate the deal. They do not establish that the League’s decision was changed by that work.

The sequence at the end is nonetheless striking. On 6 October 2021, Saudi Arabia lifted its four-year ban on beIN and promised to close pirate websites. The Guardian reported the same day that local MPs and council leaders had “long supported” the takeover, and that “discreet discussions” about reviving it had recently taken place “between British government intermediaries and their Saudi counterparts”.⁶⁰ On 7 October the League announced that it had “received legally binding assurances that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will not control Newcastle United Football Club”, and the takeover completed.⁶¹ In early 2023, in litigation in the United States over LIV Golf, the PIF described itself as “a sovereign instrumentality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Newcastle’s chairman, as “a sitting minister of the Saudi government”.⁶²

The assurances and the filing do not formally contradict each other, but they sit uneasily together, and the League has not published the assurances. Author’s analysis: the Newcastle sequence satisfies M3 as fully as any episode in this paper. A message attributed to the Crown Prince linked the decision explicitly to “economic and commercial relations”. Ministers and diplomats worked on the obstacles. A bilateral piracy dispute between two Gulf states was settled the day before approval. And the regulator moved from treating the PIF as the state to accepting a contractual promise that the state would stand back. The evidence does not show that the League acted under compulsion. It does show the cost of saying no rising until the obstacle was converted into something that could be negotiated.

The local channel was present too. FairSquare records that Newcastle City Council’s chief executive offered to meet the League to work on a “compromise”, calling the deal “transformational”. It also quotes the writer Alex Niven’s view that it “would probably be political suicide” for a local MP to oppose the takeover.⁶³ Chi Onwurah, the MP for Newcastle Central, said publicly that the takeover would not stop her criticising the Saudi government; FairSquare’s assessment is that there has been little local criticism since.⁶⁴ That is M1 again, with a named exception that should be recorded.

Golf: Leverage Through a Framework Agreement

Golf shows leverage applied to a governing body directly. LIV Golf, financed by the PIF, launched in 2022 and drew leading players away from the PGA Tour with large guaranteed contracts. On 6 June 2023 the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the PIF announced a framework agreement to combine their commercial operations in a new entity.⁶⁵ The framework was largely non-binding.⁶⁶ At a hearing of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on 11 July 2023, its chair, Senator Richard Blumenthal, said the deal would let a regime “cleanse its public image … It’s called sportswashing”. He also disclosed that a non-disparagement clause had been added to the agreement the night before it was signed.⁶⁷

A non-disparagement clause is leverage in contractual form. But golf is also the clearest example of leverage failing, because the combined entity never closed. In April 2026 CBS Sports reported that the PIF would end its funding of LIV after the 2026 season, as that funding was “no longer consistent with the current phase of PIF’s investment strategy”.⁶⁸ In August 2026 the PGA Tour’s chief executive, Brian Rolapp, said: “There’s no merger, no conversations.”⁶⁹ Author’s analysis: scrutiny in Washington appears to have raised the deal’s cost faster than the PIF’s money could lower it. Leverage is weakest where the scrutinising legislature has no stake in the investment.

FIFA: Commercial Dependence and the 2034 Award

The third Saudi channel runs through football’s world governing body. On 25 April 2024 FIFA announced Aramco, the Saudi state oil company, as a Major Worldwide Partner through the end of 2027, with rights to the 2026 men’s World Cup and the 2027 Women’s World Cup. FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, said the partnership would “assist FIFA to successfully deliver its flagship tournaments” and “enable us to provide enhanced support to our 211 FIFA member associations”.⁷⁰ In October 2024 a group of professional women players wrote to FIFA asking it to end the deal.⁷¹

Saudi Arabia was the only bidder for the 2034 World Cup. FIFA’s evaluation report gave the bid 4.2 out of 5 and 419.8 out of 500. It rated the human rights risk “medium” and said there was “good potential for the tournament to serve as a catalyst for some of the ongoing and future reforms”.⁷² FIFA confirmed the award on 11 December 2024. Amnesty International’s Steve Cockburn called it “FIFA’s reckless decision” and said that “at every stage of this bidding process, FIFA has shown its commitment to human rights to be a sham”; twenty-one organisations issued a joint statement condemning the award.⁷³ The Crown Prince himself has been unapologetic: “If sportswashing (is) going to increase my GDP by 1%, then we’ll continue doing sportswashing.”⁷⁴

Author’s analysis: M4 is satisfied in form. FIFA signed a top-tier commercial contract with a Saudi state company in the same year in which it evaluated and awarded a tournament to the Saudi state, without, as far as I can find, any published recusal or conflict procedure separating the two. That does not show that the contract bought the award, and Saudi Arabia was unopposed. It shows a governing body that had become commercially dependent on the state whose bid it was assessing, and had not built any visible wall between those roles.

V. Qatar: Leverage Through Institutions

The 2022 Award and Its Allegations

Qatar’s leverage is the most institutional of the three cases, and the most mixed. FIFA awarded it the 2022 World Cup in December 2010. In April 2020 US prosecutors unsealed an indictment alleging that members of FIFA’s executive committee had been bribed in connection with the votes for 2018 and 2022.⁷⁵ These are allegations in an indictment. Qatar denied them.⁷⁶ The award brought scrutiny of the kind soft-power theory predicts can backfire. The Guardian’s 2021 report of more than 6,500 deaths of South Asian migrant workers since the award became a reference point, though Kristian Coates Ulrichsen has called the figure “spurious” as a measure of World Cup deaths.⁷⁷ The European Parliament adopted a critical resolution during the tournament.⁷⁸ On the eve of the tournament, Infantino told reporters: “Today I feel Qatari.”⁷⁹

The ILO Settlement as a Negotiated Output

The labour reforms show leverage running in both directions. In 2014 a complaint was lodged against Qatar under article 26 of the ILO Constitution, alleging non-observance of the Forced Labour and Labour Inspection Conventions. Such a complaint can lead to a commission of inquiry, the ILO’s most serious procedure. On 8 November 2017 the Governing Body “supported the agreed technical cooperation programme” between Qatar and the ILO and “decided to close the complaint procedure”.⁸⁰ The programme, agreed the day before, committed Qatar to a three-year reform plan from 2018 to 2020, including replacing the kafala sponsorship system.⁸¹ The chairperson of the Governing Body, Luc Cortebeeck, spoke of “the transformation of this complaint into a real commitment”, while the president of the ILO’s Workers’ Group, Catelene Passchier, warned that “nice words and good intentions are not sufficient. Implementation of these intentions in law and practice is critical.”⁸² In 2020 Qatar introduced a non-discriminatory minimum wage and removed the requirement for workers to obtain their employer’s permission to change jobs, steps the ILO described as dismantling the kafala system.⁸³

Author’s analysis: this is the case that most complicates a one-directional leverage thesis. The World Cup gave Qatar’s critics leverage too, because the tournament fixed a date by which the state needed its reputation intact, and the ILO complaint was the instrument through which that pressure was applied. The outcome was a negotiated exchange: the most serious enforcement route was closed, and a cooperation programme with measurable reforms took its place. The reforms were real. The structural point is that enforcement was converted into negotiation on terms reflecting both sides’ bargaining power. Leverage, on this evidence, can be acquired by the critic as well as the investor, provided the critic has a forum that the investor cannot exit.

beIN, beoutQ and the WTO

Qatar also used a rule-based forum against a rival. After Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut ties with Qatar in 2017, beoutQ pirated beIN’s content on a large scale. Qatar brought WTO proceedings, and in June 2020 the panel found that Saudi Arabia had acted inconsistently with article 61 of the TRIPS Agreement by failing to apply criminal procedures to beoutQ, and that the security exception in article 73 did not justify that failure.⁸⁴ Saudi Arabia appealed. The appeal was suspended after the Al-Ula Declaration of January 2021 restored relations, and Qatar terminated the dispute in April 2022 without the report being adopted.⁸⁵

The dispute matters here for two reasons. One Gulf state’s sport-media asset became a bargaining counter in another’s acquisition of an English club, since the beIN settlement preceded the Newcastle approval by one day. And the Premier League’s interest as a rights-seller was entangled with its function as the judge of owners. The League had a direct financial interest in ending piracy of its product and made submissions in the WTO case.⁸⁶ Author’s analysis: when a regulator’s commercial partner and its prospective owner are in dispute, a settlement between them can resolve the regulator’s objection and its commercial problem at the same time. That is a structural conflict, whether or not it affected the decision.

Qatar Sports Investments, PSG and European Club Governance

The deepest Qatari channel is institutional office. Nasser Al-Khelaifi has been president of Paris Saint-Germain since Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), which he chairs, bought the club in 2011. He is also group chairman of beIN Media Group. He joined the board of the European Club Association in 2016 and became its chairman in April 2021, as the Super League collapsed; the association is now called European Football Clubs (EFC). He represents EFC on UEFA’s Executive Committee and, since October 2025, on the FIFA Council.⁸⁷ He has held the UEFA seat since February 2019, when UEFA’s Congress in Rome ratified his election as one of the association’s two representatives; the conflict of interest was raised at the time, but no federation objected.⁸⁸ In April 2025 beIN extended its exclusive rights to UEFA’s club competitions across the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia until the end of the 2026/27 season. The counterparty was UC3, “the UEFA-ECA joint venture”.⁸⁹

One person therefore heads a state-owned club subject to UEFA’s financial rules, a broadcaster that buys UEFA’s rights, and the clubs’ association that co-owns the joint venture selling those rights, and he sits on the committee that governs the competition. I make no allegation of impropriety in any of these roles. Swiss federal courts have three times acquitted him of charges arising from the separate FIFA media-rights case against Jérôme Valcke, most recently in the Federal Supreme Court. That is a court finding in his favour, and it should be stated as plainly as any allegation.⁹⁰ The point is structural, and it is marker M4 combined with the institutional channel. The regulated, the regulator and the regulator’s customer overlap in one office.

UEFA’s enforcement against PSG fits marker M5. In 2014 PSG accepted a settlement with the CFCB. Its published summary recorded a financial contribution and squad restrictions, but no exclusion.⁹¹ In my thesis I noted the CFCB’s later assessment of PSG’s sponsorship by the Qatar Tourism Authority at a fair value far below the sums paid, and observed that “in the cases of both Manchester City and PSG, the relevant sponsors had direct ties to the owners of the clubs”.⁹² In September 2022 the CFCB found that PSG, with seven other clubs, had not complied with the break-even requirement. PSG agreed to a €65 million settlement, of which €10 million was unconditional and €55 million conditional on meeting targets.⁹³ These are regulatory findings and settled sanctions. They show that enforcement happens. They also show that, against a state-owned club of PSG’s size, it has twice taken the form of a negotiated settlement in which most of the financial penalty was suspended.

VI. Tax Design Versus State Capital: The Thesis Frame

My earlier thesis examined a different instrument for drawing talent and money into a national football economy: legislated preferential tax regimes such as Spain’s “Beckham Law” and Italy’s flat tax on foreign income for new residents. I contended then that “reducing national tax liabilities of high income foreign workers may attract superstar footballers to play in those countries with favourable regimes”.⁹⁴ Kleven, Landais and Saez had found strong evidence that the mobility of top footballers responds to tax rates.⁹⁵ A 2021 study for the European Parliament on taxing professional football covered the same terrain and cited that thesis, alongside Kleven, Landais and Saez, for the proposition that players are more inclined to play where their pay is taxed favourably.⁹⁶ I argued that “the enormous sums of money involved in football make it a domain that countries with an interest in soccer should seek to enter, by way of curated tax policies”.⁹⁷

The leverage thesis sharpens that argument. A preferential tax regime and a sovereign fund’s purchase of a club both aim to bring talent, attention and money into a football economy. They differ in accountability. A tax regime is enacted by a legislature, published, debated, open to challenge under EU law, and repealable by the next parliament, and its terms are the same for everyone who qualifies. Spain withdrew the Beckham Law in 2010 for incomes above €600,000, as my thesis recorded.⁹⁸ Whatever one thinks of that choice, it is what democratic control of a talent-attraction tool looks like.

State capital in sport works through none of those channels. It is deployed by executive decision in the investing state, through private-law vehicles in the receiving state: a holding company, a joint venture, a sponsorship contract, a collaboration agreement whose terms surface years later through a newsletter’s investigation. Its counterparties are not legislatures but councils, leagues and federations, and the dependencies it creates are negotiated in private. It attracts talent as effectively as a tax break, but it also buys what a tax regime cannot: a stake in the decisions of the institutions that would otherwise regulate it.

It also exploits the same weakness my thesis identified. I wrote that “governing football bodies have little to no jurisdiction to punish these actors, and national tax authorities do not have the resources or legal standing to properly deter tax evasion”.⁹⁹ Enforcement in football is split among leagues, confederations, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, national regulators, tax authorities and, for disputes between states, the WTO. Each forum sees part of the picture. Author’s analysis: leverage thrives in that fragmentation because each forum’s decision carries costs that fall on other actors. The Premier League decides, but the costs of its decision are said to fall on Manchester’s regeneration and on UK–UAE investment. The grey area my thesis described, between avoidance and evasion, has a counterpart here: the space between legitimate investment and the purchase of regulatory forbearance.

VII. Counterarguments

The term itself. Simon Chadwick has said that sportswashing is “not a term that I feel especially comfortable with”. He argues that Northern commentators “reduced the Qatar World Cup to sport washing” when it “was much more complex and nuanced than that”.¹⁰⁰ Ulrichsen observes that the term “did not even exist in 2010” and that some coverage of Qatar “veered at times into orientalist” framing.¹⁰¹ Skey questions whether the word is an analytic concept at all or merely a media headline.¹⁰² I accept much of this, and the leverage account is partly a response to it. It drops the hard-to-prove claim that investors mainly want to launder an image, and replaces it with a claim about dependency that can be tested. It also applies to investors from any country, which answers the charge of orientalism. Chadwick’s own view that sport is “the means to an end” is close to my thesis; we differ mainly on whether the end includes influence over the regulators.

Regeneration benefits. The joint venture in Manchester produced homes where none were being built. The council’s July 2026 review found “significant benefits”.¹⁰³ The i Paper reports that the investment around the stadium created hundreds of jobs in one of the city’s most deprived areas.¹⁰⁴ I do not dispute that. Benefit and leverage are not alternatives. The more valuable the investment, the greater the dependency, and the higher the cost of a rupture. The Sheffield researchers’ critique of the terms is relevant only to the extent that it suggests the public partner was prepared to accept unusual terms to secure the relationship.¹⁰⁵ The developer Tim Heatley, for one, believes the upturn would have happened without it.¹⁰⁶

Correlation is not causation. This is the strongest objection, and the evidence does not overcome it. Officials may decline to criticise a foreign state because they think it is not their role, and pledges may coincide with regulatory decisions because both follow a calendar. The Premier League’s chief executive denied that pressure was applied over Newcastle.¹⁰⁷ Burnham’s sympathy for City may owe more to his view that his own club, Everton, was unfairly treated than to any calculation about investment.¹⁰⁸ My claim is therefore limited. The markers show that dependency exists, that it is visible at regulatory moments, and that decision-makers themselves articulate it. They do not show that any regulator decided differently because of it. To show that would require internal deliberations that are not public.

Private Western owners lobby too. Leverage is not unique to states. In April 2021 a group of Europe’s leading clubs, most of them privately or member-owned, announced a breakaway Super League and so tried to turn commercial weight against UEFA. UEFA’s Congress condemned the plan.¹⁰⁹ Boykoff’s theory of sportswashing is expressly not confined to autocracies.¹¹⁰ The markers apply to any owner. What distinguishes state capital is reach. A private owner can threaten to leave a city, but it cannot link a league’s decision to a “bilateral state relationship”, place its chairman on a diplomatic list or settle a piracy dispute between governments.

No source shows a coordinated doctrine. I found no document in which the UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar sets out a strategy of acquiring leverage through sport. The three states are rivals as often as allies: Saudi Arabia and the UAE blockaded Qatar from 2017 to 2021, and Qatar’s broadcaster was the victim of Saudi piracy. The Crown Prince’s remark about GDP frames sport as economic diversification, not as a means of influence.¹¹¹ The leverage thesis does not require a doctrine. Dependency is a structural consequence of investment whether or not anyone intends it, and the markers test for the consequence, not the intention. I do not describe these cases as a coordinated Gulf strategy.

Enforcement happened. The Commission found against Manchester City. UEFA settled with PSG twice. A WTO panel found against Saudi Arabia, and the ILO extracted reforms from Qatar. If leverage were decisive, none of this would have occurred. That marks the limit of the thesis. Leverage raises the cost of enforcement and stretches its timetable. It does not guarantee impunity.

VIII. Assessment

The table summarises the evidence against each marker. The rating is my own assessment of how far the documented record supports the marker, not a finding by any source.

Author’s analysis: the evidence is strongest where dependency is contractual and documented: the Manchester joint venture, the Newcastle sequence and the overlapping offices at UEFA. It is weakest where it depends on attributing motive to silence. The counter-indicators are real. The Commission reached findings, the PGA Tour deal collapsed under political scrutiny, and Qatar conceded reforms. They suggest that leverage is most effective against bodies that share in the investment, such as councils, governments seeking inward investment and federations with commercial ties, and least effective against bodies with no stake and independent legal authority, such as an arbitral commission or a foreign legislature.

IX. Recommendations: Pricing Leverage Back In

If leverage raises the political cost of enforcement, the response is to make dependencies visible and insulate decisions from them. I believe seven measures would do so without discouraging legitimate investment.

1. Disclosure of contacts during live proceedings. Ministers, metro mayors and council leaders should publish, promptly, every meeting and item of hospitality involving the owners of a club, or that owner’s government, while a regulatory proceeding against the club is live. The Liberal Democrats’ request of 2 October 2026 is a sensible template.¹¹² A convention of ministerial restraint, analogous to the sub judice rule, should apply to comment on the merits of live sporting proceedings.

2. Due diligence and transparency in municipal joint ventures. A council entering a joint venture with a sovereign-linked investor should publish the agreement, with only genuinely commercial terms redacted. Exclusivity clauses should be time-limited and reported to full council. Serving council leaders should not sit as directors of a joint venture with the owner of a club that occupies a council-owned asset. Human rights due diligence of the kind Human Rights Watch and FairSquare asked mayoral candidates to adopt should form part of the approval process.¹¹³

3. Ownership tests that follow the substance of state control. The Independent Football Regulator’s owner-suitability powers should treat a sovereign fund as its state for control purposes unless the contrary is shown, and any assurances accepted in lieu should be published. The gap between the “legally binding assurances” of 2021 and the “sovereign instrumentality” of 2023 should not recur.

4. Separating governing bodies’ commercial and regulatory roles. FIFA, UEFA and national leagues should disclose revenue concentrations from any single state and its entities, and should adopt recusal rules for officials whose other roles create commercial ties to a party before them. No top-tier sponsorship with a bidding state’s entities should be concluded during that state’s bid evaluation without independent review.

5. Timely enforcement. Limitation periods in football regulation should run from discovery, and disciplinary rules should set enforceable timetables. Delay is not neutral. It is the period in which leverage operates.

6. Cross-forum information sharing. The Premier League, the Independent Football Regulator, UEFA and HM Revenue and Customs should have formal gateways to share evidence on related-party funding, so that the fragmentation my thesis identified is not a structural advantage for the best-funded owners.

7. Protection for whistleblowers. Governing bodies and national regulators in sport should operate protected reporting channels, with confidentiality and protection against retaliation, for anyone with evidence of concealed ownership funding, undisclosed related-party arrangements or other financial misconduct. Where a jurisdiction already protects whistleblowers, as the EU Whistleblower Directive does for breaches of Union law on financial services and the prevention of money laundering,¹¹⁴ sporting regulators should align with it. The lesson of Football Leaks is not that hacking should be rewarded. It is that when the only route to evidence of concealment is a crime, the system has left disclosure to those willing to commit one.

X. Conclusion: Lack of a Better Alternative

The reputational account of sportswashing asks whether audiences were persuaded. That question ignores the people who make decisions. A council in a joint venture with a club’s owner, a government seeking that owner’s investment, a league weighing a Crown Prince’s message about “economic and commercial relations”, a world governing body evaluating a bid from its sponsor’s state, and a European club association led by a state-owned club’s president who also chairs a rights-buying broadcaster: none of these actors needs to be persuaded of anything for state capital to matter. They need only to depend on it.

I contend, accordingly, that state investment in sport is better understood as buying leverage than as buying reputation, and that the record in Manchester, Newcastle and European club governance supports that contention on each of the markers set out above, most strongly where the dependency is written into a contract or an office. The record does not show that leverage defeats enforcement; the Commission’s findings show otherwise. What leverage does is raise the political price of enforcement, lengthen it, and scatter it across forums, none of which bears the full cost of acting. And where the only route to evidence of concealment is a leak, enforcement comes to depend on people the system then prosecutes.

In my thesis I argued that countries wishing to draw talent and capital into football should do so “by way of curated tax policies”.¹¹⁵ Such an incentive has a virtue I did not then emphasise: it is accountable in a way that opaque arrangements are not, and the same logic applies here. Investment from any source is welcome on terms that are published, tested and enforceable. State capital that arrives through private contracts, binds public bodies in confidence and expects forbearance in return is a different thing. For lack of a better alternative, the answer is not to exclude it but to price its leverage back into the open, by disclosure, recusal, substantive ownership tests and enforcement that is quick enough to outpace the politics.

For the legal work behind sport and hospitality, from sponsorship and endorsement agreements to venue licensing, see Barbarian Law’s Sports & Hospitality practice.

Notes

1. European Investigative Collaborations, “Football Leaks Continues”, eic.network; publication of the Manchester City material began in November 2018. ↩
2. The Football Association Premier League Limited v Manchester City Football Club Limited, Redacted Core Decision, 29 Sept. 2026. ↩
3. “‘Football Leaks Whistleblower’ arrested in Hungary collaborated with French prosecutors”, The Black Sea, Jan. 2019. ↩
4. Agence France-Presse, “Football Leaks hacker Rui Pinto faces 90 charges as trial opens”, TechXplore, 3 Sept. 2020. ↩
5. Associated Press, “Court convicts Portuguese hacker in Football Leaks trial and gives him a 4-year suspended sentence”, SecurityWeek, Sept. 2023. ↩
6. “Tribunal da Relação mantém pena de quatro anos de prisão a Rui Pinto”, Sábado, Jan. 2025. ↩
7. “Rui Pinto absolvido de 241 crimes no segundo julgamento”, Observador, 29 Apr. 2026. ↩
8. “Ministério Público recorre de decisão que absolveu Rui Pinto”, RTP, 30 Apr. 2026. ↩
9. US Department of Justice, “WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Charged in 18-Count Superseding Indictment”, 23 May 2019. ↩
10. “The Government Can’t Connect a Single Death to Bradley Manning’s Leaks”, Nextgov, Aug. 2013, reporting the sentencing testimony of Brig. Gen. Robert Carr. ↩
11. Lavelle, Daniel, “UAE may halt UK investments after Manchester City guilty verdict,” The Guardian, 3 Oct. 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/oct/03/united-arab-emirates-uae-uk-investments-manchester-city-guilty-verdict. Hereafter Lavelle, The Guardian, 3 Oct. 2026. The Bloomberg report was not read directly, and the officials were not named. ↩
12. Mason, Chris, “Chris Mason: Why Andy Burnham’s about-turn on Manchester City matters,” BBC News, 1 Oct. 2026, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5kg0gwwpyx8o. The interview was recorded on 30 Sept. 2026 at the close of the Labour Party conference. Hereafter Mason, BBC News, 1 Oct. 2026. ↩
13. Boykoff, Jules, “Toward a Theory of Sportswashing: Mega-Events, Soft Power, and Political Conflict,” Sociology of Sport Journal, vol. 39, no. 4, 2022, pp. 342–351, p. 342, doi:10.1123/ssj.2022-0095; Skey, Michael, “Sportswashing: Media Headline or Analytic Concept?” International Review for the Sociology of Sport, vol. 58, no. 5, 2023, pp. 749–764, p. 749, doi:10.1177/10126902221136086. ↩
14. Grix, Jonathan, and Donna Lee, “Soft Power, Sports Mega-Events and Emerging States: The Lure of the Politics of Attraction,” Global Society, vol. 27, no. 4, 2013, pp. 521–536, p. 521, doi:10.1080/13600826.2013.827632. ↩
15. Brannagan, Paul Michael, and Richard Giulianotti, “Soft Power and Soft Disempowerment: Qatar, Global Sport and Football’s 2022 World Cup Finals,” Leisure Studies, vol. 34, no. 6, 2015, pp. 703–719, doi:10.1080/02614367.2014.964291. ↩
16. Boykoff, p. 342. ↩
17. Fruh, Kyle, Alfred Archer, and Jake Wojtowicz, “Sportswashing: Complicity and Corruption,” Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, vol. 17, no. 1, 2023, pp. 101–118, p. 101, doi:10.1080/17511321.2022.2107697. ↩
18. Chadwick, Simon, “From Utilitarianism and Neoclassical Sport Management to a New Geopolitical Economy of Sport,” European Sport Management Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 5, 2022, pp. 685–704, p. 685, doi:10.1080/16184742.2022.2032251; “Interview – Simon Chadwick,” E-International Relations, 2023, https://www.e-ir.org/p/interview-simon-chadwick. The quoted phrase is from the interview. ↩
19. Hirschman, Albert O., National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade, University of California Press, 1945, doi:10.1525/9780520378179. Cited for its general argument; no pinpoint is relied on. ↩
20. Keohane, Robert O., and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition, Little, Brown, 1977; see also Keohane, Robert O., and Joseph S. Nye, “Power and Interdependence,” Survival, vol. 15, no. 4, 1973, pp. 158–165, doi:10.1080/00396337308441409. The book is cited for its general framework; no pinpoint is relied on. ↩
21. Farrell, Henry, and Abraham L. Newman, “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion,” International Security, vol. 44, no. 1, 2019, pp. 42–79, doi:10.1162/isec_a_00351. ↩
22. Halliday, Josh, “How success of Manchester City helped put Andy Burnham in power,” The Guardian, 1 Oct. 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/oct/01/success-manchester-city-helped-put-andy-burnham-in-power. Hereafter Halliday, The Guardian, 1 Oct. 2026. ↩
23. Dulhanty, Jack, “Revealed: How Sheikh Mansour got first dibs on development in east Manchester,” The Mill, 4 July 2025, https://manchestermill.co.uk/exclusive-sheikh-mansour-contract-manchester/. The newsletter headline was “Exclusive: The contract that gives Sheikh Mansour first dibs on Manchester”. Part of the article is paywalled and was not read. ↩
24. Robson, Steve, “Revealed: Man City owners’ link to Burnham’s No 10 North site,” The i Paper, 4 Oct. 2026, https://inews.co.uk/news/man-city-owners-link-burnhams-no-10-north-4806063. Hereafter Robson, The i Paper, 4 Oct. 2026. This is journalism resting on documents the paper says it has seen; the agreement has not been published in full. ↩
25. Ibid. The opinion is an allegation by an interested party, not a finding. ↩
26. Goulding, Richard, Adam Leaver, and Jonathan Silver, Manchester Offshored: A Public Interest Report on the Manchester Life Partnership between Manchester City Council and the Abu Dhabi United Group, Centripetal Cities, University of Sheffield, 20 July 2022, pp. 7, 25, https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/189304/1/Centripetal%20Cities%20Report%20FINAL%2020%20July%202022.pdf. Hereafter Goulding, Leaver and Silver. ↩
27. Ibid., p. 6; see also p. 51. ↩
28. Halliday, The Guardian, 1 Oct. 2026; Waddington, Marc, Kevin Fitzpatrick, and Georgie Docker, “Ex-Manchester leader defends deals with Man City owners,” BBC News, 5 Oct. 2026, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9gkv7pdd620o. Hereafter Waddington et al., BBC News, 5 Oct. 2026. ↩
29. As reported in Halliday, The Guardian, 1 Oct. 2026. The review itself was not read for this paper. ↩
30. Merrill, Jamie, “Manchester leaders flag UAE rights concerns on anniversary of massacre,” Middle East Eye, 16 Aug. 2016, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/manchester-leaders-flag-uae-rights-concerns-anniversary-massacre. ↩
31. FairSquare, Easy Cities to Buy, pp. 4–5. ↩
32. Ibid., pp. 12–13. This is a single named former insider’s account relayed by an advocacy organisation. ↩
33. As quoted in Robson, Steve, “How Man City’s owners wooed Andy Burnham, from property deals to football chats,” The i Paper, 1 Oct. 2026, https://inews.co.uk/news/how-man-citys-owners-wooed-andy-burnham-property-football-4802542. Hereafter Robson, The i Paper, 1 Oct. 2026. The podcast audio was not checked. ↩
34. Human Rights Watch and FairSquare, joint letter, 24 July 2026. ↩
35. Premier League, “Premier League Statement: Manchester City FC,” Premier League, 29 Sept. 2026, https://www.premierleague.com/en/news/4727779. Hereafter PL Statement (29 Sept. 2026). ↩
36. The Football Association Premier League Limited v Manchester City Football Club Limited, Independent Commission constituted under Section W of the Premier League Rules, Redacted Core Decision (published 29 Sept. 2026), paras 72, 76–77, https://resources.premierleague.pulselive.com/premierleague/document/2026/09/29/9bb3f063-6312-4d15-a1f1-77280d356a49/Premier-League-Manchester-City-independent-Commission-Redacted-Core-Decision.pdf. Hereafter Core Decision. ↩
37. Somerville, BBC News, 2 Oct. 2026; Manchester City FC, statement announcing the lodging of its appeal, mancity.com, 2 Oct. 2026, https://www.mancity.com/news/club/manchester-city-lodge-appeal-63926534. ↩
38. Mason, BBC News, 1 Oct. 2026. ↩
39. Somerville, BBC News, 2 Oct. 2026. ↩
40. Liberal Democrats, “Lib Dems call on Burnham to come clean on Man City meetings and freebies,” press release, 2 Oct. 2026, https://www.libdems.org.uk/press/release/lib-dems-call-on-burnham-to-come-clean-on-man-city-meetings-and-freebies. ↩
41. Somerville, BBC News, 2 Oct. 2026. ↩
42. Lavelle, The Guardian, 3 Oct. 2026. ↩
43. Shehadi, Lemma, “Andy Burnham discusses war and investment with Gulf leaders,” The National, 27 July 2026, https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/uk/2026/07/27/andy-burnham-discusses-war-and-investment-with-gulf-leaders/. ↩
44. FairSquare, Easy Cities to Buy, pp. 4–5. The officials were not named. ↩
45. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, London Diplomatic List, Oct. 2026, entry for the United Arab Emirates, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6abe2dc026660e5f62a7f1f3/LONDON_DIPLOMATIC_LIST_-_OCTOBER_2026.odt. Reporting that he has held the post since 2020 rests on the Financial Times and is not relied on here. ↩
46. Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 18 Apr. 1961, 500 UNTS 95, arts 31, 32, 38(1), 39, 42, https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf; Diplomatic Privileges Act 1964 (c. 81), ss 2(1), 4, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1964/81. ↩
47. Reyes v Al-Malki and another [2017] UKSC 61, paras 19, 21, https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2016_0023_judgment_2c0c2b6cc0.pdf. ↩
48. Core Decision, paras 29, 110. ↩
49. Manchester City FC v Union des Associations Européennes de Football (UEFA), CAS 2020/A/6785, Arbitral Award (13 July 2020), Jus Mundi, https://jusmundi.com/en/document/decision/en-manchester-city-football-club-limited-v-union-des-associations-europeennes-de-football-uefa-arbitral-award-monday-13th-july-2020-1; Court of Arbitration for Sport, “Media Release: CAS 2020/A/6785 Manchester City FC v. UEFA,” 13 July 2020, https://www.tas-cas.org/generated/assets/lists/dceab111-07bc-435f-b5f9-de88eff9db72/CAS_Media_Release_6785_Decision.pdf. ↩
50. On the request to HMRC from the chair of the Treasury Committee, Dame Meg Hillier, see Somerville, BBC News, 2 Oct. 2026. ↩
51. Conn, David, “Revealed: government did encourage Premier League to approve Newcastle takeover,” The Guardian, 24 May 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/may/24/government-did-encourage-premier-league-to-approve-saudi-newcastle-takeover. Hereafter Conn, The Guardian, 24 May 2022. ↩
52. Saudi Arabia – Measures Concerning the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, WT/DS567/R, Panel Report circulated 16 June 2020, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/567r_e.pdf; “Newcastle takeover in serious doubt as WTO rules pirate TV channel is Saudi,” The Guardian, 26 May 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/may/26/newcastle-takeover-in-serious-doubt-as-wto-rules-pirate-tv-channel-is-saudi. ↩
53. FairSquare, Easy Cities to Buy, pp. 8–9, 36–39, relaying reporting by Simon Walters in the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail article and the message itself were not read for this paper; the wording is FairSquare’s quotation of that report. ↩
54. Conn, The Guardian, 24 May 2022, relaying earlier Daily Mail reporting of leaked messages. ↩
55. FairSquare, Easy Cities to Buy, pp. 36–39, quoting FOI material reported by Adam Crafton in The Athletic in April 2023. The FOI documents were not read directly. ↩
56. Conn, The Guardian, 24 May 2022. ↩
57. Conn, David, and Lucas Amin, “Revealed: Tory minister’s push to smooth Saudi Newcastle takeover,” openDemocracy, 26 Sept. 2022, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/saudi-arabia-newcastle-united-takeover-gerry-grimstone/; “Documents reveal Tory minister’s push to smooth Saudi Newcastle takeover,” The Guardian, 26 Sept. 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/sep/26/documents-reveal-tory-ministers-push-to-smooth-saudi-newcastle-takeover. ↩
58. Conn, The Guardian, 24 May 2022, quoting Johnson’s parliamentary answer to Chi Onwurah MP, Apr. 2021. ↩
59. Ibid. ↩
60. Ingle, Sean, and Louise Taylor, “Saudi-backed takeover of Newcastle imminent after 18-month wrangle,” The Guardian, 6 Oct. 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/oct/06/newcastle-takeover-gets-boost-as-saudi-arabia-lifts-ban-on-bein-sports. ↩
61. Premier League, “Premier League statement on the takeover of Newcastle United,” 7 Oct. 2021, https://www.premierleague.com/en/news/2283712. ↩
62. As reported in “Court document describes Newcastle chairman as ‘sitting Saudi minister’,” The Guardian, 1 Mar. 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/mar/01/newcastle-united-chairman-court-document-sitting-saudi-arabia-government-minister. The filing itself was not retrieved; FairSquare, Easy Cities to Buy, p. 37, gives the same description. ↩
63. FairSquare, Easy Cities to Buy, pp. 36–39. ↩
64. Ibid. ↩
65. PGA TOUR, “PGA TOUR, DP World Tour and PIF announce newly formed commercial entity to unify golf,” 6 June 2023, https://www.pgatour.com/article/news/latest/2023/06/06/pga-tour-dp-world-tour-and-pif-announce-newly-formed–commercial-entity-to-unify-golf. ↩
66. Framework Agreement between PGA TOUR, Inc., DP World Tour and the Public Investment Fund, 30 May 2023, as published by DocumentCloud, https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23866542/pga-tour-liv-golf-framework-agreement.pdf. ↩
67. US Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, The PGA-LIV Deal: Implications for the Future of Golf and Saudi Arabia’s Influence in the United States, hearing, 11 July 2023, https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hearings/the-pga-liv-deal-implications-for-the-future-of-golf-and-saudi-arabias-influence-in-the-united-states/; Blumenthal, Richard, “Chair Blumenthal Opening Statement,” 11 July 2023, https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023-07-11-Chair-Blumenthal-Opening-Statement.pdf. ↩
68. As quoted in Kalland, Robby, “LIV Golf restructures as Saudi Arabia ends funding after 2026 season: What’s next?” CBS Sports, 30 Apr. 2026, https://www.cbssports.com/golf/news/saudi-arabia-liv-golf-funding-2026-season-pga-tour/. The PIF statement itself was not retrieved. ↩
69. ” ‘There’s No Merger, No Conversations’ – PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp Shuts Down LIV Golf Talks,” Golf Monthly, 8 Aug. 2026, https://www.golfmonthly.com/news/theres-no-merger-no-conversations-pga-tour-ceo-brian-rolapp-shuts-down-liv-golf-talks. ↩
70. FIFA, “Aramco and FIFA announce global partnership,” media release, 25 Apr. 2024, https://inside.fifa.com/tournament-organisation/commercial/media-releases/aramco-and-fifa-announce-global-partnership; Dunbar, Graham, “FIFA seals closer ties to Saudi Arabia with Aramco sponsor deal,” Associated Press, 25 Apr. 2024, https://apnews.com/article/fifa-saudi-arabia-aramco-a62b1ce2c0372a602fd9909a548d27fe. ↩
71. “Women footballers call on FIFA to end partnership with Saudi Aramco,” Reuters, 21 Oct. 2024, https://www.reuters.com/sports/soccer/women-footballers-call-fifa-end-partnership-with-saudi-aramco-2024-10-21/. ↩
72. FIFA, FIFA World Cup 2034 Bid Evaluation Report, Nov. 2024, pp. 10, 12, 13, 94, https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/51d8a13714827f1d/original/FIFA-World-Cup-2034-Bid-Evaluation-Report.pdf. ↩
73. Amnesty International, “Global: Confirmation of Saudi Arabia as 2034 FIFA World Cup host puts many lives at risk,” 11 Dec. 2024, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/global-confirmation-of-saudi-arabia-as-2034-fifa-world-cup-host-puts-many-lives-at-risk/; Human Rights Watch, “Joint Statement: Award of 2034 Men’s World Cup to Saudi Arabia Risks Lives and Exposes FIFA’s Empty Human Rights Commitments,” 11 Dec. 2024, https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/11/joint-statement-award-2034-mens-world-cup-saudi-arabia-risks-lives-and-exposes-fifas. ↩
74. Report on the Crown Prince’s Fox News interview, Reuters, 22 Sept. 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-crown-prince-says-he-does-not-care-about-sportswashing-claims-2023-09-22/. The broadcast itself was not reviewed. ↩
75. US Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York, “Three Media Executives and Sports Marketing Company Indicted in FIFA Case,” press release, 6 Apr. 2020, https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/three-media-executives-and-sports-marketing-company-indicted-fifa-case; Blum, Ronald, “US prosecutors allege bribes in 2018, 2022 World Cup votes,” Associated Press, 6 Apr. 2020, https://apnews.com/us-prosecutors-allege-bribes-in-2018-2022-world-cup-votes-8cb94d455011f8d78dde058cb51ec69e. The DOJ page blocks automated retrieval; its content was confirmed through search results and the AP report. ↩
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77. Pattisson, Pete, Niamh McIntyre, et al., “Revealed: 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since World Cup awarded,” The Guardian, 23 Feb. 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/revealed-migrant-worker-deaths-qatar-fifa-world-cup-2022; Ulrichsen, Kristian Coates, “Qatar’s Successful World Cup Signals a New Era in the Gulf and Beyond,” Arab Center Washington DC, 5 Jan. 2023, https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/qatars-successful-world-cup-signals-a-new-era-in-the-gulf-and-beyond/. ↩
78. European Parliament, Resolution of 24 November 2022 on the situation of human rights in the context of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, P9_TA(2022)0427, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2022-0427_EN.html. ↩
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92. Eshqoor, Karim, “Tax Optimization in European Football: Attracting Top Talent,” ResearchGate, 2019, republished Barbarian Law, 4 Mar. 2023, “Overvaluation of Sponsorship”, https://barbarianlaw.ca/tax-optimization-in-european-football-attracting-top-talent/. Hereafter Eshqoor, “Tax Optimization”. The republication is unpaginated; pinpoints are to its section headings. ↩
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95. Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen, Camille Landais, and Emmanuel Saez, “Taxation and International Migration of Superstars: Evidence from the European Football Market,” American Economic Review, vol. 103, no. 5, 2013, pp. 1892–1924, p. 1892, doi:10.1257/aer.103.5.1892. ↩
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97. Eshqoor, “Tax Optimization”, “Lack of a Better Alternative”. ↩
98. Eshqoor, “Tax Optimization”, “Beckham Law”. ↩
99. Eshqoor, “Tax Optimization”, “Vulnerabilities of Football”. ↩
100. “Interview – Simon Chadwick,” E-International Relations, 2023. ↩
101. Ulrichsen, Arab Center Washington DC, 5 Jan. 2023. ↩
102. Skey, p. 749. ↩
103. As reported in Halliday, The Guardian, 1 Oct. 2026. ↩
104. Robson, The i Paper, 1 Oct. 2026. ↩
105. Goulding, Leaver and Silver, pp. 6–7. ↩
106. Halliday, The Guardian, 1 Oct. 2026. ↩
107. Conn, The Guardian, 24 May 2022. ↩
108. Mason, BBC News, 1 Oct. 2026. ↩
109. UEFA, “UEFA Congress condemns breakaway plans,” 20 Apr. 2021; Dunbar, Associated Press, 21 Apr. 2021. ↩
110. Boykoff, p. 342. ↩
111. Reuters, 22 Sept. 2023. ↩
112. Liberal Democrats, press release, 2 Oct. 2026. ↩
113. Human Rights Watch and FairSquare, joint letter, 24 July 2026. ↩
114. Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law, art. 2(1)(a)(ii) and Annex. ↩
115. Eshqoor, “Tax Optimization”, “Lack of a Better Alternative”. ↩

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The Football Association Premier League Limited v Manchester City Football Club Limited. Independent Commission constituted under Section W of the Premier League Rules, Redacted Core Decision, published 29 Sept. 2026, https://resources.premierleague.pulselive.com/premierleague/document/2026/09/29/9bb3f063-6312-4d15-a1f1-77280d356a49/Premier-League-Manchester-City-independent-Commission-Redacted-Core-Decision.pdf.

Manchester City FC v Union des Associations Européennes de Football (UEFA). CAS 2020/A/6785, Arbitral Award, 13 July 2020, https://jusmundi.com/en/document/decision/en-manchester-city-football-club-limited-v-union-des-associations-europeennes-de-football-uefa-arbitral-award-monday-13th-july-2020-1.

Reyes v Al-Malki and another [2017] UKSC 61, https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2016_0023_judgment_2c0c2b6cc0.pdf.

Saudi Arabia – Measures Concerning the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights. WT/DS567/R, Panel Report circulated 16 June 2020, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/567r_e.pdf.

Legislation and Treaties

Diplomatic Privileges Act 1964 (c. 81), https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1964/81.

Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law. OJ L 305, 26 Nov. 2019, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2019/1937/oj.

Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 18 Apr. 1961, 500 UNTS 95, https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf.

Official Documents

Amnesty International. “Global: Confirmation of Saudi Arabia as 2034 FIFA World Cup host puts many lives at risk.” 11 Dec. 2024, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/global-confirmation-of-saudi-arabia-as-2034-fifa-world-cup-host-puts-many-lives-at-risk/.

Blumenthal, Richard. “Chair Blumenthal Opening Statement.” US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 11 July 2023, https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023-07-11-Chair-Blumenthal-Opening-Statement.pdf.

Court of Arbitration for Sport. “Media Release: CAS 2020/A/6785 Manchester City FC v. UEFA.” 13 July 2020, https://www.tas-cas.org/generated/assets/lists/dceab111-07bc-435f-b5f9-de88eff9db72/CAS_Media_Release_6785_Decision.pdf.

European Parliament. Resolution of 24 November 2022 on the situation of human rights in the context of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, P9_TA(2022)0427, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2022-0427_EN.html.

FIFA. “Aramco and FIFA announce global partnership.” 25 Apr. 2024, https://inside.fifa.com/tournament-organisation/commercial/media-releases/aramco-and-fifa-announce-global-partnership.

FIFA. FIFA World Cup 2034 Bid Evaluation Report. Nov. 2024, https://digitalhub.fifa.com/m/51d8a13714827f1d/original/FIFA-World-Cup-2034-Bid-Evaluation-Report.pdf.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. London Diplomatic List. Oct. 2026, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6abe2dc026660e5f62a7f1f3/LONDON_DIPLOMATIC_LIST_-_OCTOBER_2026.odt.

Framework Agreement between PGA TOUR, Inc., DP World Tour and the Public Investment Fund. 30 May 2023, DocumentCloud, https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23866542/pga-tour-liv-golf-framework-agreement.pdf.

Human Rights Watch. “Joint Statement: Award of 2034 Men’s World Cup to Saudi Arabia Risks Lives and Exposes FIFA’s Empty Human Rights Commitments.” 11 Dec. 2024, https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/11/joint-statement-award-2034-mens-world-cup-saudi-arabia-risks-lives-and-exposes-fifas.

Human Rights Watch and FairSquare. “Joint Letter to Greater Manchester Mayoral Candidates on the United Arab Emirates and Human Rights Concerns.” 24 July 2026, https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/07/24/joint-letter-to-greater-manchester-mayoral-candidates-on-the-united-arab-emirates.

International Labour Organization. “Dismantling the kafala system and introducing a minimum wage mark new era for Qatar labour market.” 30 Aug. 2020, https://www.ilo.org/resource/article/dismantling-kafala-system-and-introducing-minimum-wage-mark-new-era-qatar.

International Labour Organization. “Four years of labour reforms in Qatar.” 1 Nov. 2022, https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/four-years-labour-reforms-qatar.

International Labour Organization. “ILO Governing Body welcomes Qatar’s commitment to bolster migrant worker rights.” 8 Nov. 2017, https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/ilo-governing-body-welcomes-qatars-commitment-bolster-migrant-worker-rights-0.

International Labour Organization, Governing Body, 331st Session. Decision on the thirteenth item on the agenda: Complaint concerning non-observance by Qatar of the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), and the Labour Inspection Convention, 1947 (No. 81). 8 Nov. 2017, https://www.ilo.org/resource/record-decisions/es/gb/gb331/decision-13th-item-agenda-complaint-concerning-non-observance-qatar-forced.

Liberal Democrats. “Lib Dems call on Burnham to come clean on Man City meetings and freebies.” 2 Oct. 2026, https://www.libdems.org.uk/press/release/lib-dems-call-on-burnham-to-come-clean-on-man-city-meetings-and-freebies.

Manchester City FC. Statement announcing the lodging of its appeal. mancity.com, 2 Oct. 2026, https://www.mancity.com/news/club/manchester-city-lodge-appeal-63926534.

Paris Saint-Germain. “ECA appoints Paris Saint-Germain’s Nasser Al-Khelaïfi as Chairman.” 21 Apr. 2021, https://en.psg.fr/teams/first-team/content/eca-appoints-paris-saint-germain-s-nasser-al-khelaifi-as-chairman.

PGA TOUR. “PGA TOUR, DP World Tour and PIF announce newly formed commercial entity to unify golf.” 6 June 2023, https://www.pgatour.com/article/news/latest/2023/06/06/pga-tour-dp-world-tour-and-pif-announce-newly-formed–commercial-entity-to-unify-golf.

Premier League. “Premier League Statement: Manchester City FC.” 29 Sept. 2026, https://www.premierleague.com/en/news/4727779.

Premier League. “Premier League statement on the takeover of Newcastle United.” 7 Oct. 2021, https://www.premierleague.com/en/news/2283712.

UEFA. “Decision of the Chief Investigator of the CFCB Investigatory Chamber: Settlement Agreement with Paris Saint-Germain Football Club” (published summary). Nyon, May 2014, https://editorial.uefa.com/resources/0258-0e2dedb6bf65-df535c83724f-1000/paris_saint-germain_-_settlement_agreement_-_may_2014.pdf.

UEFA. “The CFCB First Chamber finalises the monitoring of clubs having taken part in 2021/22 UEFA club competitions.” 2 Sept. 2022, https://www.uefa.com/news-media/news/0279-1603e68faca4-8a20edf89532-1000–the-cfcb-first-chamber-finalises-the-monitoring-of-clubs-h/.

UEFA. “UEFA Congress condemns breakaway plans.” 20 Apr. 2021, https://www.uefa.com/news-media/news/0268-1215f6bee879-def81eca96d8-1000–uefa-congress-condemns-breakaway-plans/.

US Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York. “Three Media Executives and Sports Marketing Company Indicted in FIFA Case.” 6 Apr. 2020, https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/three-media-executives-and-sports-marketing-company-indicted-fifa-case.

US Department of Justice. “WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Charged in 18-Count Superseding Indictment.” 23 May 2019, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-charged-18-count-superseding-indictment.

US Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The PGA-LIV Deal: Implications for the Future of Golf and Saudi Arabia’s Influence in the United States. Hearing, 11 July 2023, https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/hearings/the-pga-liv-deal-implications-for-the-future-of-golf-and-saudi-arabias-influence-in-the-united-states/.

World Trade Organization. “DS567: Saudi Arabia — Measures Concerning the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights” (dispute page). https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds567_e.htm.

Facts stated as at 5 October 2026.