By Julien Pretot
PARIS (Reuters) – Financial investigators were searching the offices of France’s LFP professional soccer league and the private equity fund CVC Capital on Tuesday, a judicial source said.
“Searches are currently under way, notably at the offices of the Ligue de Football Professionnel and the CVC investment fund,” the source told Reuters.
“The searches are part of an investigation that was opened on July 16, 2024, and handed over to the Paris Research Unit, on charges of embezzlement of public funds, active and passive bribery of a public official and illegal taking of interest.”
In 2022, CVC Capital acquired a 13% stake worth 1.5 billion euros in the LFP’s newly created media rights business company.
A report by the French Senate last week said “errors were made in the last years in the management of French professional football”.
The source added on Tuesday: “These proceedings follow a complaint lodged on Nov. 27, 2023 by the ‘AC!’ association, which alleges misappropriation of public funds in 2022 ‘in connection with the creation of the LFP1 subsidiary’.”
Michel Savin, who presided over the Senate report, had said that “while the long-term usefulness of the CVC deal for the clubs remains to be demonstrated, given the dividend to be paid for life, its interest for the LFP’s management is obvious, immediate and without any future consideration”.
The LFP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A CVC spokesperson in Paris had no immediate comment.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot and Makini Brice; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Kevin Liffey and Ed Osmond)
