⚽ Around 10 years ago, I started approaching professional football clubs to discuss anti-money laundering risks.

To be honest, most of them looked at me as if I was talking about a problem that belonged somewhere else entirely.

At that point, my career had been spent in regulated financial institutions and with regulators. Football was a very different environment. But some of the vulnerabilities were obvious even then: unclear ownership structures, questionable investor money, inflated transfer values, and complex agent networks.

💡I saw the sector would eventually face much greater scrutiny, so I set up a dedicated advisory company with a group of specialists focused on risk management for football clubs.

A few clubs were willing not only to have the conversation, but also to sign engagements. Credit to them — they saw earlier than others where things were heading. Most, however, were not convinced – at least not yet.

Then the FIFA scandal happened. After that, the idea that football could have serious financial crime exposure no longer sounded theoretical.

Fast forward to today, and the regulatory landscape is changing quickly. Recently, AMLA Chair Bruna Szego made it clear that professional football clubs and agents will fall fully within the EU AML framework from July 2029.

🔎 Investor checks
🔎 Beneficial ownership transparency
🔎 Transfer monitoring
🔎 Sponsorship scrutiny

In other words: the kind of controls many people in the sector once thought would never apply to football.

🗣️ Her message was straightforward: start preparing now.

Personally, I think this is long overdue. The football industry has changed enormously over the past decade, financially and geopolitically. Regulation was always going to catch up eventually.

💬 Interested to hear views from others working in sport, compliance or finance.
Are clubs genuinely preparing already — or will many leave this until the last possible moment?