2022 Nominees

Al Jazeera Investigations: The Men Who Sell Football

Al Jazeera I Unit

QATAR

- Crime & Investigative

The Men Who Sell Football exposes for the first time the murky world of soccer funding, ownership and governance, demonstrating how easy it is to break rules which bar anybody with a serious criminal conviction from buying a club. Following the investigation, the English Football League launched an urgent revision of its Owners’ and Directors’ Test. The EFL said in a statement that the rules governing ownership would be reviewed “in light of the observations made in the programme”, and it admitted that football was vulnerable to “unscrupulous individuals”. PwC financial crime specialist, Kathryn Westmore called revelations in the documentary “shocking”. The financial crime publication, AML Intelligence, wrote, “The allegations have already made their impact even at the top levels of AML (Anti-money laundering)”, while the head of the G7’s Financial Action Task Force wrote that the documentary’s findings were “sad but true”.