The Guardian report that the investigation is centred around a deal apparently made in January 2014 with a company called Trestellar Ltd, which saw an increase of around £11m in the club’s commercial income and sponsorship, reducing the club’s significant losses that season.
The club then claim that the company sold the main sponsorships of the club to King Power – the club’s owners. The club’s owners already held the sponsorship before the Trestellar deal though, with the commercial/sponsorship income the season before the deal standing at £5.2m (compared to £16m after).
The jump in income almost certainly allowed the club to avoid a large fine under financial fair play
rules, with a number of the club’s rivals angry at what they see at the Foxes cheating the system – with one club owner claiming that Leicester’s actions ‘look like financial doping’.
Trestellar was a newly-formed company at the time that it produced its huge injection of income, with the Guardian reporting that it still has no website, telephone number, or any kind of presence of sign at the address where the company is registered in Sheffield.
The son and daughter of Sir Dave Richards, a former Premier League chairman himself, set up the company. His son, Dave Jr, told the Guardian when asked about the lack of contact details: “Why would we need one? We are very busy, we are relatively well known and in the networks in which we move, we are known to the people we wish to be known to.”
Damian Collins, an MP on the House of Commons culture, media and sport committee, said: “Leicester should answer the questions publicly, to explain this arrangement, which looks unusual to say the least, to reassure people it was not an attempt to evade the FFP rules.”
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