In this article, Sally Davitt, Executive Director in our
Forensic team, discusses the importance of Forensic investigations
in uncovering corporate misconduct.
Last week UEFA fined big-money club Manchester City GBP25
million and banned it for two years from the Champions League. The
club was banned for breaching UEFA's Financial Fair Play Rules
(FFP Rules), for attempting to hide the amount of investment that
an owner can provide.
This means that financial misstatement in sport has again seen
the need for forensic accountants (one of the authors of this
article has worked on a football-related investigation).
Forensic accountants used the potential goldmine of data of
emails and accounting records to understand whether Manchester City
had been misleading UEFA. It is alleged that the club offset the
huge losses it made on player signings and wages with
'commercial revenue' from large sponsorships from Abu Dhabi
companies. Those sponsorships are alleged to be
