A report by Der Spiegel alleges that Roberto Mancini got part of his compensation at Manchester City through a fictitious consultancy contract.
The Italy CT signed with Manchester City in 2009 and remained in charge until 2013, winning the club’s first title in 44 years in 2012. He is seen as a key figure in the club’s history, but there are now shadows looming over his spell at the Etihad Stadium.
Following sanctions imposed on Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, German paper Dier Spiegel has published an investigation over clubs and players that have allegedly received payments from governing agencies of authoritarian states and Italy coach Roberto Mancini is also involved. The CT is ‘thought to have received a significant portion of his compensation secretly by way of a fictitious consultancy contract.’
The report details the figures of the agreement between Mancini and Manchester City, attaching a copy of the contract. The Sampdoria legend was to be paid £1.4m per season, pls £4m add-ons.
However, on that same day, he also signed what appears to be a consultancy contract with Al Jazira worth £1.7m and with fees ‘to be paid to an account nominated by your company and will be paid without deduction of any taxation.’ Der Spiegel attached the signed contract and emails with Simon Pearce and the Manchester City financial department, who processed the payments.
‘Those invoices were only seemingly paid by Al Jazira: IIS would send its invoices to Manchester City, the club would wire the money to ADUG, which would then send it onward to Al Jazira before it was eventually paid to IIS,’ the report claims.
‘The system was described by a ManCity employee in July 2012, with Simon Pearce confirming the procedure from the emirate’s perspective.’