Fifa Investigate Arsenal

[Dan]

Fifa has launched an investigation into whether Arsenal have broken regulations which could leave the club exposed to serious penalties - even expulsion from the Champions League. Newsnight has learnt that a police investigation in Belgium has concluded that Arsenal made secret payments of £1m to a Belgian football club.

The payments were made to take over Beveren, which has brought dozens of players from the Ivory Coast into Europe.

Arsenal deny making any financial input into Beveren but the BBC has been shown documents by the investigating magistrates, including one signed by David Dein on behalf of Arsenal Football Club PLC.

It was a mystery payment of one million pounds to an obscure Belgian football club in 2001 which sparked off a money-laundering investigation.

A company with no name wanted to invest a million pounds in the club. We thought it rather bizarre

Christian du Four, Investigating Magistrate

The club, Beveren, was in desperate financial straits and they refused to say where the cash had come from.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/5037494.stm

[TheArsenal]

Already posted in the Arsenal thread. It's why we have "official" threads....

[Steeb]

And for those of us who wouldn't normally go in the thread....?

[Dan]

Already posted in the Arsenal thread. It's why we have "official" threads....

We posted them at the same time...

[TheArsenal]

Already posted in the Arsenal thread. It's why we have "official" threads....

We posted them at the same time...