On 30 June 2026, UEFA's Club Financial Control Body published the outcomes of its club monitoring process for the 2025/26 season. Fourteen clubs across European football were sanctioned. Four were from the Premier League. This is what happened, what it means and what clubs need to understand about the framework that produced these outcomes.

Article 3(3)(n) of EU Regulation 2024/1624 is unambiguous. Every natural or legal person who, for remuneration, provides intermediary services by representing or acting on behalf of natural or legal persons in the negotiation or conclusion of transactions involving the transfer of a football player is an obliged entity under EU AML law from 10 July 2029. That definition applies equally to the largest multi-national agency and the solo operator representing two players in the third division. This guide explains, in precise and practical terms, what that means for you.

EU Regulation 2024/1624 requires professional football clubs to have a functioning AML compliance framework from July 2029. It does not require them to build or staff it internally. Outsourcing the compliance function is expressly permissible, and for most clubs, the more practical option. But outsourcing does not transfer legal responsibility. The club remains the obliged entity. The club remains accountable to its regulator. What outsourcing transfers is the operational delivery of the compliance function, not the obligation itself.

Some clubs have been asked to provide documentation they have never been asked for before. Some have had facilities reviewed or restricted. A few have lost banking relationships entirely. In almost every case, the club's finance team did not see it coming, and had no framework for responding to it. This article explains what is happening, why it is happening now, and what a football club CFO or finance director needs to understand to protect their banking relationships going forward.

Football moved USD 8.59 billion in international transfer fees in 2024 and a record USD 1.37 billion in agent commissions in 2025, flowing through ownership structures, image-rights vehicles and cross-border payment chains that span virtually every jurisdiction on earth. The Financial Action Task Force warned in 2009 that the sport's regulatory framework had not kept pace with its own growth. Sixteen years later, the European Union has finally acted. This article explains, in detail, how the laundering actually works, and why football's structure makes it uniquely exploitable.

EU Regulation 2024/1624 does not apply directly to clubs in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico or Panama. But if your club sells players to Europe, works with European agents or aspires to attract international investment, European rules already shape the terms on which those transactions can happen. This guide explains why and what you need to do about it.

El Reglamento UE 2024/1624 no se aplica directamente a los clubes de Brasil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Costa Rica, México ni Panamá. Pero si el club vende jugadores a Europa, trabaja con agentes europeos o aspira a atraer inversores internacionales, las reglas europeas definen ya las condiciones en las que esas transacciones deben llevarse a cabo. Esta guía explica por qué, y qué hay que hacer al respecto.

If you hold a senior role at a regulated English football club, or are about to, the Independent Football Regulator may have already assessed you. If not, it will. Since 5 May 2026, every person carrying out one of six Senior Management Functions at a regulated club requires the IFR's prior approval. That approval is personal, not delegable, and the consequences of operating without it are enforceable against you individually.

For most of English football's history, how a club engaged with its supporters was a matter of choice. The Football Governance Act 2025 has ended that. Fan engagement is now a mandatory condition of the IFR operating licence every regulated club must hold. This article explains what the requirement demands, what it does not demand, and why the clubs that treat it as a governance opportunity rather than a compliance burden will emerge from the licensing process in the stronger commercial and reputational position.

From 10 July 2029, every football agent who earns a fee for intermediary services becomes an obliged entity under EU Regulation 2024/1624. Every club that pays that fee has been an obliged entity since the same date. The money flowing through agent relationships is now the most scrutinised transaction category in professional football, and the regulatory framework that governs it is almost entirely unbuilt.

Every club that aspires to enter UEFA competition must hold a licence. Every licence depends on satisfying six categories of criteria. Of those six, the legal criteria, and specifically the ownership integrity requirements contained in Articles 63 to 65 of the UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Sustainability Regulations, Edition 2025, are where the compliance burden is most easily underestimated and the consequences of failure are most immediate. This article explains what those requirements actually demand.

The Independent Football Regulator's Owners, Directors and Senior Executives regime came into force on 5 May 2026. It is not a future obligation. It is not a consultation. Every regulated club in the top five tiers of English men's professional football must comply with it now, and most clubs are only beginning to understand what that compliance actually requires.

Every regulated club in the top five tiers of English football must hold an IFR operating licence to compete from the 2027/28 season. Here is exactly how the licensing regime works, what it requires, and what it costs to get it wrong.

The transfer window concentrates more financial crime risk into a shorter period than almost any other event in professional sport. Hundreds of millions of pounds move in weeks. Intermediaries multiply. Ownership structures that took months to construct are tested in days. And most clubs enter the window with controls that were not designed for it. Here are the five failures we see most consistently -- and why each of them matters more than ever as the regulatory environment closes in.

On 9 June 2026, the Anti-Money Laundering Authority held its first conference in Brussels. Isabel Lemes, Co-founder and Director of Lagom Sports Compliance, attended. What follows are the five messages from the day that matter most for professional football clubs and agents.

English football has a statutory regulator. It is operational. Its ownership regime has been fully live since May 2026 and every club in the top five tiers must hold an operating licence to compete from the 2027/28 season. This is not forthcoming legislation or a consultation paper. It is the law, and clubs that have not begun to engage with its requirements are already behind.

Proportionality is the word smaller clubs are quietly hoping will let them off the hook. It will not. EU Regulation 2024/1624 does build in a genuine, legally grounded principle of proportionate compliance, but most clubs do not know what that principle actually requires of them, do not have the in-house capability to apply it, and are running out of time to find out. This article explains what proportionality really means, what it really demands, and what a right-sized compliance framework looks like in practice.

AMLA published its draft guidelines on ongoing monitoring of business relationships on 3 June 2026. Football clubs and agents are in scope. The consultation closes on 3 September 2026. Final guidelines are expected in Q4 2026. The window to understand what is coming, and to respond, is open now. Here is what the consultation paper actually requires, and why it matters for professional football.

Football club AML compliance is no longer a choice. From 10 July 2029, EU Regulation 2024/1624 -- the EU Anti-Money Laundering Regulation -- formally brings professional football clubs and football agents inside the same regulatory perimeter as banks and payment institutions. Customer due diligence, sanctions screening, beneficial ownership analysis, suspicious-activity reporting, and a board-approved governance framework become legal requirements. Most clubs have none of this in place. The window to build it properly is now, not 2028.

This morning, the Financial Conduct Authority -- the UK's statutory regulator of financial services firms and markets -- wrote to every Premier League club and the wider professional football community warning that sponsorship deals with unauthorised financial firms expose clubs to legal liability, money laundering risk and serious reputational damage. The letter names no specific clubs. The press coverage that followed named several. Every club in the English pyramid needs to read this carefully.