User:Winlekn/sandbox

Football Leaks is a website published as a result of material illegally obtained through cybercrime, with the intention to extort money from clubs and organizations. The material contains confidential information about notable footballers and clubs

Leaks
The website was set up in September 2015 and reveals transfer fee, wage and contract information about famous footballers. Its first leak was about third-party agreements between FC Twente and Doyen Sports, which led to the Royal Dutch Football Association banning Twente from European football for three years. Football Leaks revealed that AS Monaco paid €43 million for Radamel Falcao, rather than around €60 million as had been estimated. In addition, the website revealed that when Neymar signed for FC Barcelona, he received an €8.5 million signing fee, and now earns €77,000 a week and a buyout clause of €190 million (£152 million).undefined A leak revealed that Gareth Bale's transfer from Tottenham Hotspur to Real Madrid was over €100 million, more than the €96 million the club paid for Cristiano Ronaldo. The website also revealed that Ronaldo earned €1.1 million for doing a photoshoot with Mobily. Another leak related to James Rodríguez's transfer from Monaco to Real Madrid for €75 million plus €15 million in additional clauses.

In January 2016, it was claimed that Football Leaks was being investigated by the Portuguese authorities over claims of blackmail and extortion. In February,Liga de Fútbol Profesional President Javier Tebas blamed FIFA for the leaks of contract details of three La Liga players. In April 2016, the website announced that it was temporarily ceasing its leaks.

In November 2018, Football Leaks claimed that there had been undercover talks about the creation of a new continental club competition, the European Super League, from 2021. In the same month, Football Leaks claimed that both Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain were violating UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules.

European Investigative Collaborators (EIC)
In December 2016, Der Spiegel and other partners at the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) network (L'Espresso (Italy), Le Soir (Belgium), NRC Handelsblad (Netherlands), The Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism / TheBlackSea.eu (Romania), Mediapart (France), Politiken (Denmark), Falter (Austria), NewsWeek (Serbia), El Mundo (Spain), The Sunday Times (UK) and Expresso (Portugal) began to publish information about tax avoidance by several football stars. Some of the information was collected by Football Leaks. The leaks include "about 18.6 million documents, including contracts, e-mails and spreadsheets, which served as material for investigative journalism work by 60 journalists from 12 European media." On 5 December, El Mundo revealed a judicial decree from Spanish judge Arturo Zamarriego that prohibits EIC from publishing information until "the legal investigation of its obtaining". Reporters Without Borders described the decision as "an attempt to censor on a continental scale".

Third Party Ownership in Association Football
The leaks revealed Third-Party Ownership (TPO) of footballers, "whereby a player’s economic rights are owned in stakes by investors". According to the Football Leaks documents obtained by Der Spiegel and shared with the EIC, certain individuals, international corporations and even large banks were implicated. One of the creators of Football Leaks conducted an interview with Der Spiegel in February 2016 using the pseudonym John during the interview.