Staying Onside – English Football, Illicit Finance, and the Incoming AML Regime

This report examines the intersection of English professional football and illicit finance, with a particular focus on club ownership structures and their potential to be misused for the management of illicit finances. While the sport generates unprecedented revenues and global influence, the 2025 UK National Risk Assessment has, for the first time, explicitly identified the football industry as vulnerable to money laundering and related financial crimes. However, systematic evidence remains absent, and policy debates often conflate qualitatively distinct risks, from kleptocracy and organised crime to tax evasion and money laundering. Building on earlier research, this study investigates the ownership networks of clubs across the Premier League and English Football League (Championship, League 1, and League 2) during the 2024–25 season. Using data triangulated from ORBIS, Kyckr, and numerous open sources, the analysis assesses the following characteristics of ownership structures: organisational complexity, use of secrecy jurisdictions, and obscuration of beneficial ownership. Findings show EPL and Championship clubs display higher levels of complexity and offshore incorporation than lower-league clubs, with frequent use of designated high-secrecy jurisdictions such as the United States, Cayman Islands, and British Virgin Islands. We argue these characteristics create conditions of possibility which could be exploited by motivated offenders. Their presence in the ownership structures of football clubs underscore the need for enhanced scrutiny of ownership arrangements, improved transparency around beneficial ownership, and proactive engagement from clubs and regulators alike.