Several Red Devils defrauded via Luxembourg
Several Red Devils had trusted certain intermediaries within the framework of companies holding their image rights. The majority of them were settled in the Grand Duchy.
Millions of euros evaporated
Several Red Devils had trusted certain intermediaries within the framework of companies holding their image rights. The majority of them were settled in the Grand Duchy.
What do the Hazard brothers, Thibaut Courtois, Romelu Lukaku, Kevin de Bruyne and Youri Tielemans have in common? Of course, these are all Red Devils, but not only. All these soccer stars who will soon fly to Qatar also share the fact of having opened a business in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. A “post office box” company which had to manage the intellectual property rights of each footballer, including image rights. Understand by this the use of the image and the name of the athlete.
At the time, Luxembourg was seen as the promised land for this. The effective tax rate was only 5.84% compared to 33.99% in Belgium, so the calculation was quickly made. According to several Belgian media, in 2020, Belgian footballers had a total fortune of some 18.5 million euros placed in Luxembourg, just that.
The Devils have deserted Luxembourg
However, the financial idyll between Luxembourg and the Devils seems to be over. Indeed, let us recall that since 2018, the Luxembourg government has gradually put an end to this favorable regime and has undertaken a business hunt “mailboxes” with opaque functioning. This, in order to fight against tax evasion. This is where we learn, through our colleagues from Het Laatste Nieuwsthat since then, no Devil still manages his image rights through a Luxembourg company, the latter have preferred to repatriate their property to their country of origin.
Only here, it is during these repatriations that several facts of fraud would have been brought to light, according to our Flemish colleagues. In their investigation, we learn in particular that the managers of these companies took an exaggerated commission on all the sums placed in Luxembourg. We are talking about several million euros stolen by unscrupulous people who had the full confidence of several Red Devils.
A Belgian-Luxembourger also seemed to be at the heart of this scam scheme. He notably managed the interests of Kevin de Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Nacer Chadli. The man had brought a lawsuit against Kevin De Bruyne in 2015, because the latter had expelled him from the board of directors of the company just before his transfer from Wolfsburg to Manchester City. At the end of the trial, De Bruyne will win on appeal.
€750,000 without Vermaelen’s knowledge
Former Devil and Arsenal defender Thomas Vermaelen also suffered from blind faith. This one would have been deceived by a member of the SEG office, an agency for sportsmen. The targeted man had become very close to current coach Roberto Martinez’s assistant until he became his wedding witness. However, the investigation of Het Laatste Nieuws reveals that he would have won 750,000 euros without the knowledge of Vermaelen during his transfer to Vissel Kobe (Japan). In recent years, other Devils have also broken off their collaboration with their agent.
Questioned by our colleagues, Sébastien Ledure, Romelu Lukaku’s lawyer, explains that “football really began to experience a financial boom, while people working in the shadows were often still from the old school”. A club only has a limited amount of pennies to spend on a transfer. Take the picture of a cake, if the agent’s commission is higher, the other parts of the cake will be smaller. It is often the player’s salary or the signing bonus,” he said, quoted by The evening.
For him, a change of mentality is taking place. “Old practices are slowly dying out. The new agents work, in most cases, in a decent way. Although, unfortunately, there are always exceptions.”
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