Ibrahimovic under FIFA and UEFA investigation

[dunfida]

If FIFA or UEFA find Zlatan guilty in all this, this will be forced retirement for him no two ways about it because his already at the end of his career and waiting another 3year's is not on his wishlist.

I would be very sad if Zlatan ends his career like that. His career won't last too long without restrictions from FIFA or UEFA but I would be happy if he retires as a legendary player and no drama or punishments. He deserves so and I am not fan of Zlatan but indeed he is one of greatest players in the era of Messi and Ronaldo. Behind Messi and Ronaldo, who are the best players?

I think Zlatan is the third best player in football in the past two decades. He scores more than 500 goals in his career. Zlatan's Career statistics

Those numbers and career achievements is there but once you had able to commit yourself on something like this then those wont be relevant anymore.
Treatment and consequences would be given fair and square neither you are a low or high class sportsman or something like that.
Im much sure that he might had been already given out some warnings but it turns out that he just ignored and now is the time for some payback.

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[Woodie]

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is under investigation because company Unknown AB that he is co-owner has 10% ownership for betting company Bethard.com.
39-year-old footballer could be fined for 100 milion euros or be suspended from all football activity for up to three years and this is going to affect him and his club Milan for sure!


https://www.football-italia.net/169135/ibrahimovic-risks-sanction-involvement-betting-agency


https://twitter.com/BethardOfficial

Looking at the number of followers BethardOfficial has says they are not a big company yet which got me thinking.

You know how companies offer shares to someone or a company if they don't have the capacity to pay upfront...what if this is what happened, a deal was signed and they didn't have the money to pay Ibrahimovic as brand ambassador (**not sure if he is **) instead they offered him a 10% stake in the company which has put him up for investigation today. What's your take?

[Marvelman]

You know how companies offer shares to someone or a company if they don't have the capacity to pay upfront...what if this is what happened, a deal was signed and they didn't have the money to pay Ibrahimovic as brand ambassador (**not sure if he is **) instead they offered him a 10% stake in the company which has put him up for investigation today. What's your take?

That is certainly possible. According to statements made in the media and on the bethardgroup website, such an agreement could have been reached from the start.

Through the agreement we will not only have an outstanding brand ambassador, but also a very engaged co-owner who I know will push us relentlessly forward

source: https://bethardgroup.com/press/zlatan/

It appears that Zlatan chose to be a co-owner of the company from the start. He even said that there was something different with Bethard and that the owners are from his hometown, so he accepted the offer.

[Sithara007]

Looking at the number of followers BethardOfficial has says they are not a big company yet which got me thinking.

You know how companies offer shares to someone or a company if they don't have the capacity to pay upfront...what if this is what happened, a deal was signed and they didn't have the money to pay Ibrahimovic as brand ambassador (**not sure if he is **) instead they offered him a 10% stake in the company which has put him up for investigation today. What's your take?

Well.. this sounds fishy to me. The number of followers are quite low, and still they made $35 million in profits that year? How can a relatively unknown company make this much profit in just one year? If the house advantage is 1%, and the cut for taxes and expenses is 50%, then we can assume that the annual turnover was somewhere around $7 billion. These numbers are huge, and I don't know how such an unknown entity can have this much turnover.

[germsite]

Looking at the number of followers BethardOfficial has says they are not a big company yet which got me thinking.

You know how companies offer shares to someone or a company if they don't have the capacity to pay upfront...what if this is what happened, a deal was signed and they didn't have the money to pay Ibrahimovic as brand ambassador (**not sure if he is **) instead they offered him a 10% stake in the company which has put him up for investigation today. What's your take?

Well.. this sounds fishy to me. The number of followers are quite low, and still they made $35 million in profits that year? How can a relatively unknown company make this much profit in just one year? If the house advantage is 1%, and the cut for taxes and expenses is 50%, then we can assume that the annual turnover was somewhere around $7 billion. These numbers are huge, and I don't know how such an unknown entity can have this much turnover.

One possibility could be that Bethard is a corporation that operates many businesses under one roof. Maybe the 35 million stem from many sources? I don't know the company well enough to judge that but you are right, they would have to have enormous revenue in order to make a profit of 35 million.

Not sure if they are unknown in the market, I have heard of them quite often.

[imstillthebest]

Looking at the number of followers BethardOfficial has says they are not a big company yet which got me thinking.

You know how companies offer shares to someone or a company if they don't have the capacity to pay upfront...what if this is what happened, a deal was signed and they didn't have the money to pay Ibrahimovic as brand ambassador (**not sure if he is **) instead they offered him a 10% stake in the company which has put him up for investigation today. What's your take?

Well.. this sounds fishy to me. The number of followers are quite low, and still they made $35 million in profits that year? How can a relatively unknown company make this much profit in just one year? If the house advantage is 1%, and the cut for taxes and expenses is 50%, then we can assume that the annual turnover was somewhere around $7 billion. These numbers are huge, and I don't know how such an unknown entity can have this much turnover.

One possibility could be that Bethard is a corporation that operates many businesses under one roof. Maybe the 35 million stem from many sources? I don't know the company well enough to judge that but you are right, they would have to have enormous revenue in order to make a profit of 35 million.

Not sure if they are unknown in the market, I have heard of them quite often.

what followers twitter followers ? company profit doesnt depend on that . i havent heard of this company .
they are not popular no wonder they have small followers  but the company is not unkown but it was the companies name unkown ab .
unknown ab has 5 companies according to this site https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.unknown_ab.4e7f6742e6f012a3463ce3bd1c1ca17f.html but the profit doesnt match or it wasnt updated .

[Silberman]

I think several people have already noticed that the penalty is not 100 million Euros, but 100 thousand Euros. A drop in the bucket for Ibrahimovic.

In any case, if Ibra were found guilty, he might be in deep trouble... because a three-year suspension from FIFA, during which he would be suspended from all football activities, would hurt him much more.

Going by the pace of the investigation, I don't think that any punishment will be handed out this year. Personally I feel that a 3-year suspension will be disproportional. But even if they decide to hand out such a punishment, then I don't expect it before 2022 or even 2023. And by that time Ibrahimovic will be 40 or 41 and happily retired from the game. I am saying this after looking at the investigation process during 2018-2021.

I really thought that the financial penalty was going to be the biggest issue for him as at the beginning it was claimed that the fine could reach 100 million but now it seems the fine could only reach 100k which is very small for someone like him so the suspension now is the big problem for him, receiving 2 or 3 years as a suspension is basically retirement for him at this point as not only his age will be a huge factor but also not playing for so long will ruin his ability to move on the field.

[Sithara007]

I really thought that the financial penalty was going to be the biggest issue for him as at the beginning it was claimed that the fine could reach 100 million but now it seems the fine could only reach 100k which is very small for someone like him so the suspension now is the big problem for him, receiving 2 or 3 years as a suspension is basically retirement for him at this point as not only his age will be a huge factor but also not playing for so long will ruin his ability to move on the field.

I don't think that the financial penalty would be that small. It looks to me that Ibrahimovic earnt millions of USD out of his deal with Bethard. So as per logic, the penalty should be higher than this. BTW, the Bethard financials also look suspicious. For a relatively unknown entity, they have a very high annual turnover. I just hope that there is nothing fishy about this sportsbook and Ibrahimovic will not find himself in bigger trouble later.

[Kittygalore]

What did he exactly do that could put him in this position, Ibrahimovic is a good player and I am sure that the club that he is in is going to have a problem if he is going to be suspended. Is there something about owning a betting company if you are a player?

[mediaBuzz]

~ this is really dumb on his part since there are many other businesses in which he could have invested and yet he picked the one that will get him in trouble.

It was not a regular investment he made, the founders are his friends from his hometown in Sweden.

[Stedsm]

What did he exactly do that could put him in this position, Ibrahimovic is a good player and I am sure that the club that he is in is going to have a problem if he is going to be suspended. Is there something about owning a betting company if you are a player?

May be some fixed games? Who knows what's going behind the scenes which could probably even ruin the career of many players of the team too except that financial loss to the Bethardofficial guys? Let's hope that's possibly not the case else it won't just add up a penalty but will bring in so many problems for Ibrahimovic during their festival of Ramadan.

[Sithara007]

May be some fixed games? Who knows what's going behind the scenes which could probably even ruin the career of many players of the team too except that financial loss to the Bethardofficial guys? Let's hope that's possibly not the case else it won't just add up a penalty but will bring in so many problems for Ibrahimovic during their festival of Ramadan.

That is one of the possibilities, because the revenue figures published by Bethard officials make me suspicious. They are much higher when compared to other sportsbooks of similar size. Still, this is only a very small possibility and the real reason for making so much profits may be due to the fact that they managed their business really well. But at 39-years, the controversy surrounding this sportsbook is the last thing that Ibra want. He will be looking to settle it by paying a fine, and moving on.

[Silberman]

What did he exactly do that could put him in this position, Ibrahimovic is a good player and I am sure that the club that he is in is going to have a problem if he is going to be suspended. Is there something about owning a betting company if you are a player?

So far it does not seem as if there was any wrongdoing except of being a partial owner of the company, many people may think this is not a big deal but it is, the whole point of a sport competition is to see two competitors doing everything they can in order to win, but if one side has an incentive to not do so then there are going to be suspicions about their performance even if they never intended to fix a single game and this is what we are seeing in the case of Ibrahimovic.

[Fortify]

This is an unclear rule, since "financial interest" could mean direct investment, not via a stock company (or mutual fund). Imagine when you invest in a retirement plan via mutual funds or index fund, the chance is you will have some portion of a betting company stock.

However, AFAIK Bethard is not publicly traded, so Ibra might be guilty for this if he knows that the parent company bought the stocks.

It is pretty clear really. If he owned it as part of a mutual fund (and the company was large enough to be included) then any possible benefit he could derive from that ownership would be heavily diluted. However when you own a large chunk of a betting company and are an active athlete then all sorts of corruption can start to seep in. The rule is there to stop abuse, he could cause all kinds of mayhem on the pitch and rig results of games in many different ways. Someone at his age and level of the game should know full well that this would not be acceptable for those reasons, so it looks like he has gone out of his way to be deceptive. It's a shame that fines are not proportionate to someones salary, because the 100k limit (even for a "first time offender") is absolute peanuts to these players, they've probably spent that much on a great night out before - if they lost 10% of their annual salary instead it might discourage such behavior in future.

[royalfestus]

This definitely won't be a good ending for Zlatan if found guilty. At 39 and winding off, he needs a soft ground to allow him go into other aspect of football after retirement like coaching as it is now the routine for retired players. Well as of now it is still an allegation until FIFA and UEFA makes their finding known.

He has spent a good time in his career but ending this way could be on the sad note, he has a questionable character but I dont think he is guilty until it has been proven. In the light of the super league, I have a different outlook on these football organizations as being selfish and oppressive. They only consider what will benefit them financially and I consider $100 million fine on an individual not company outrageous.

[Sithara007]

The official statement from UEFA is that they are investigating Zlatan Ibrahimovic for his "alleged financial interest" in the gambling firm.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/27/football/zlatan-ibrahimovic-investigated-by-uefa-for-betting-company-spt-intl/index.html

"In accordance with Article 31(4) of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations (DR), a UEFA Ethics and Disciplinary Inspector has today been appointed to conduct a disciplinary investigation regarding a potential violation of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations by Mr. Zlatan Ibrahimović for having an alleged financial interest in a betting company,"

Zlatan won't be much worried about the financial penalty that is being talked about (as per Article 31(4), the maximum fine can be $119,000), but he will be worried about a possible three year suspension. That will cause him a few tens of millions of USD in losses, plus tarnishing his reputation. I just hope that things will be settled in an amicable manner by all the sides involved.

[DU18]

Ibrahimovic could face a penalty in the form of a fine but it looks like a fine is not something that can burden Ibrahimovic right now because indeed he can easily pay it I think the ban from involvement in football for three years is certainly a pretty harsh punishment for a world player like Ibrahimovic and most likely a ban playing three years can hasten the end of Ibrahimovic's career because he is now 39 years old and if subject to maximum punishment, Ibrahimovic could have been forced to quit his football career until he was 42 years old and of course 42 years is no longer a productive age for sports athletes other than Ibrahim of course with this penalty Ac Milan are quite disadvantaged because they have just extended the Ibrahimovic contract until 2022.

[Kittygalore]

~

So far it does not seem as if there was any wrongdoing except of being a partial owner of the company, many people may think this is not a big deal but it is, the whole point of a sport competition is to see two competitors doing everything they can in order to win, but if one side has an incentive to not do so then there are going to be suspicions about their performance even if they never intended to fix a single game and this is what we are seeing in the case of Ibrahimovic.

You are right, although this is a bit sad ain't it? That if you are an athlete you can't have any stake in business that will directly affect your performance in the game but how come betting sites can sponsor the players? Yes they don't have a stake directly but if they want to, they caan probably throw the game.

[Wexnident]

Zlatan won't be much worried about the financial penalty that is being talked about (as per Article 31(4), the maximum fine can be $119,000), but he will be worried about a possible three year suspension. That will cause him a few tens of millions of USD in losses, plus tarnishing his reputation. I just hope that things will be settled in an amicable manner by all the sides involved.

It's not only that even, but that's also THREE years of losing the time to play and train under the pressure of tournaments and the like. I'd reckon the moment he comes back, it's either a flop or just the normal skill level he has. If it was a flop, heck that would just add up to the reputation loss he had for those 3 years. As for the financial penalty, heck, with his current financial status PLUS the money he earned from sponsoring the gambling firm (he was chosen as the spokesperson back then iiirc), he has more than enough. I'd also reckon that the firm would support him for his losses if ever, albeit temporarily (if he does own part of the firm)

[Silberman]

So far it does not seem as if there was any wrongdoing except of being a partial owner of the company, many people may think this is not a big deal but it is, the whole point of a sport competition is to see two competitors doing everything they can in order to win, but if one side has an incentive to not do so then there are going to be suspicions about their performance even if they never intended to fix a single game and this is what we are seeing in the case of Ibrahimovic.

You are right, although this is a bit sad ain't it? That if you are an athlete you can't have any stake in business that will directly affect your performance in the game but how come betting sites can sponsor the players? Yes they don't have a stake directly but if they want to, they caan probably throw the game.

It just comes with the territory, there are many occupations that have similar restrictions and there are rules in place in order to eliminate conflicts of interest, probably one of the most common professions where this happens is what happens to lawyers, for example if you ask for a paid consultation to a lawyer and then you decide to hire another one in a lawsuit against another person that other person cannot hire the first lawyer that gave consultation to you or he will have an unfair advantage over you causing a conflicts of interests.