Andrea Radrizzani and Sampdoria’s mystery millions — Square Ball 30/1/25
Where'd that come from?!
Words by: Chris McMenamy
Back in September, I wrote a story in issue two of our
magazine about our old pal Andrea Radrizzani buying the ailing Italian club
Sampdoria after he left Leeds in the summer of 2023, a deal he made with his
business partner Matteo Manfredi:
Manfredi was seen as the reference point for the investors,
several of whom have ties to Singapore and were reported to have been involved
thanks to Radrizzani’s connections in that part of the world.
Last week, investigative football journalists Josimar
published a story titled ‘The Singapore connection’ about the relationship
between Radrizzani and the operators of FUN88, the illegal Asian betting firm
‘operating’ from the Isle of Man. You might remember that a different betting
company operating from the Isle of Man once paid millions to sponsor Leeds
United when Radrizzani owned the club — SBOTOP.
The crux of the issue raised in the story by Philippe
Auclair is that Radrizzani and Manfredi presented themselves as Sampdoria’s
saviours when the pair bought the club and saved them from bankruptcy in June
2023. In fact, it was Singaporean money that meant the club didn’t go out of
business, and Auclair is wondering why an illegal gambling company might give
almost €100m in finance to an unprofitable football club. Cheesy writers
stopped calling football ‘the beautiful game’ a long time ago for good reason.
Radrizzani’s business interests in Singapore are long
standing. He completed the purchase of Leeds United in 2017 through Greenfield
Investment Pte. Ltd, a private Singaporean company. Greenfield also bought
Elland Road at that time and ownership of the stadium was only transferred back
to the club in July 2024, a year after Radrizzani had sold up to the 49ers
Enterprises.
Radrizzani’s purchase of Sampdoria was completed through
Gestio Capital Ltd, a London-based investment firm whose only director was his
business partner Manfredi. Genoa’s main newspaper Il Secolo XIX found that the
company that ultimately owned the majority of shares in Sampdoria was not
Gestio Capital but a Luxembourg holding company, Kickoff Ventures SA.
Kickoff Ventures SA’s 58% shareholding in Blucerchiati
s.p.a, the entity under which Sampdoria operates, had been transferred from the
original Luxembourgian holding company set up by Radrizzani and Manfredi,
Gestio Capital Structuring and Investment SA.
Both companies shared a registered address, an unassuming
three-floor apartment block in Luxembourg that almost certainly isn’t an
‘office’, but that’s normal when dealing in a corporate tax haven. What is
peculiar is that both companies had the same director, Elena Guaraldi, who was
also named as a director of over twenty companies in the state. I’m starting to
get the idea here.
I wrote in September that Radrizzani had been effectively
ousted at Sampdoria as quickly as he arrived on the scene, having divested his
shares in Sampdoria by March 2024, at least officially. In practice, it seems
that the sale might have happened a lot earlier.
He disappeared from his public-facing role at Samp in
October 2023 after the team had won only one of its first nine Serie B games
and fans started to rebel against this new direction being taken. It was at
this time that the majority of shares were transferred to Kickoff Ventures, a
company owned by three Singapore nationals, including Tey Wei Jin, who was
named in the Panama Papers scandal in 2015, when client-attorney information
was leaked regarding offshore accounts in the country held by famous and/or
wealthy individuals.
Josimar has found links between Tey Wei Jin and the two
other individuals and FUN88, the illegal betting company that used to sponsor
Newcastle United. The FUN88 logo is registered as a trademark in the Isle of
Man under the name Mustafar Limited, a Manx registered company whose owners are
Tey Wei Jin and his two pals.
Sampdoria haven’t denied Tey Wei Jin’s involvement with the
club, with Manfredi telling the assembled press before a recent match:
“I control the board of directors. Mr Tey is one of the
investors. We made it clear that the investments were collected before the
purchase [of the club]. To make these investments, you have to do it this way.
Other than [their investment in Sampdoria], they are in casino gambling.”
They are indeed. The issue at hand, at least in the eyes of
the media and any right-minded football fan is this: should this be allowed?
The controversy goes beyond good faith and transparency in governance because
Radrizzani and Manfredi’s takeover of Sampdoria came at the same time another
Serie B club, Reggina, were facing bankruptcy.
Manfredi and Radrizzani presented a debt management and
restructuring plan to Covisoc, the regulatory body in Italian football finance
and their takeover passed a tribunal in Genoa. Would this have been the case if
Gestio Capital had been fully transparent with the authorities in the origin of
their financial backing? Quite possibly not.
Reggina weren’t so lucky. They presented their own
restructuring plan, which was provisionally approved, but they were excluded
from the 2023/24 Serie B season as they weren’t able to push through the
takeover and make the required payments before the deadline at the end of June.
Many Reggina fans felt that Sampdoria were given preferential treatment because
of their status in Italian football as former champions. And there’s the small
matter of the socio-economic divide between the richer north and poorer south
that has played out in Italian life for as long as anyone can remember. The
northern side survived in this scenario, while the southern club went to the
wall.
Radrizzani may have sold his shares and contacted Josimar to
provide ‘updated’ information after their article was published, but he was
also spotted in the stands at Stadio Olimpico last month when Sampdoria faced
Roma in the Coppa Italia. He was in the director’s box alongside Manfredi and
others, including Tey Wei Jin.
What exactly went on with him and Sampdoria remains a matter
clouded by the purposeful obfuscation of complex ownership structures, tax
havens and accountancy practices, but almost nothing to do with football. While
he took the credit as Samp’s ‘saviour’ in June 2023, he faded from view pretty
quickly and now the club finds itself struggling against relegation to Serie C,
a demotion that would likely lead to bankruptcy.