A few years back Arsenal had set up a Gibraltar based company to handle the image rights of it's players. Not sure what the outcome was after it was publicised.I did wonder why UEFA focused so much on our sponsorships in their attempts to stitch us up when the image rights issues seemed potentially more embarrassing. I suspect we were only doing what many/most other clubs were doing and could prove it.
Billy Meredith?Image rights is really a piss take isn’t it. So too clubs paying agents’ fees. How has this been allowed to creep into the game? I would love to know which club was the first to pay an agent on behalf of a player. I bet it wasn’t us!
I was not saying we were hiding any wages, I just asked if UEFA had stopped the CFG and MCFC sharing staff/wages.The senior figures like Ferran Soriano, Txiki Begiristain, Roel De Vries and Omar Berrada are paid by CFG because, funnily enough, they work for CFG. But I'm pretty sure we (City that is) contribute to those wages via a cross-charge.
We also have those two companies City Football Services and City Football Marketing who employ staff. They definitely cross-charge the various CFG clubs, including us (in fact mainly us). They're also included in our FFP reporting perimeter so the claims that we've "hidden" wages is nonsense on both counts. We also brought most of the CFS staff back to City in 2018.
One of the things Der Spiegel did genuinely expose though was our use of a third-party, non-subsidiary company, called Fordham Image Rights, to pay some or all of the image rights payments to players and I suspect we've also brought that back in-house, which is why I believe wages increased this so much in those last accounts.
Good post. I suspect image rights have been an issue for decades. For example if Sergio appears in a TV advert wearing a City shirt who gets the income? I think it is perfectly reasonable for clubs and players to have an agreement on image rights and to do that in the most tax efficient way. It goes back to the 1930s when Denis Compton was known as the "Brylcreem Boy" because of his sponsorship deal.Billy Meredith?
Image rights are the #1 tool for tax dodging. The rights to use the image of all top sports stars will be run by an agency located in some tax exempt territory. So the payment goes from the club to an overseas company that pays no tax. It doesn't show on the tax return of the player.Image rights is really a piss take isn’t it. So too clubs paying agents’ fees. How has this been allowed to creep into the game? I would love to know which club was the first to pay an agent on behalf of a player. I bet it wasn’t us!
Exactly. It just oozes sleaze and corruption.Image rights are the #1 tool for tax dodging. The rights to use the image of all top sports stars will be run by an agency located in some tax exempt territory. So the payment goes from the club to an overseas company that pays no tax. It doesn't show on the tax return of the player.
David Cameron comes to mind!Exactly. It just oozes sleaze and corruption.
They’ll be in Pot 1 anyway unless they mess up in the Consolation Cup.Don’t worry Agent Gill will be working on more changes to the coefficient table - it’s always one step forward and three back with these corrupt bastards... maybe you’ll get coefficient points for the number of penalties received in all competitions next season... that’ll get the Rags back in Pot 1.
Given they have to play Roma followed by either Villarreal or Arsenal there's a fair chance of that I'd have thought.They’ll be in Pot 1 anyway unless they mess up in the Consolation Cup.