• Deals for Demba Ba, Papiss Cissé and Sylvain Marveaux being looked at
The investigation into suspected £5m income tax fraud in football is focusing on payments relating to five players’ transfers to Newcastle United, including those of Moussa Sissoko, Papiss Cissé, Demba Ba and Sylvain Marveaux, according to sources close to the investigation. HM Revenue and Customs, which conducted an extensive raid on Newcastle’s and West Ham United’s offices on Wednesday morning, is understood to be chiefly investigating the payments made to agents, and whether £5m income tax and national insurance was fraudulently evaded.
The Newcastle managing director, Lee Charnley, who was arrested in a dawn raid at his house on Wednesday by six officers, and questioned during the day, is thought to have been told by HMRC officials that he is not personally under suspicion, and he was released without charge. Charnley was the Newcastle club secretary, not a director or in an executive position, when the deals, all for French players, were concluded. Ba signed for Newcastle from West Ham in June 2011, Marveaux from Rennes the following month; Cissé joined from Freiburg in January 2012, and Sissoko, for whom Newcastle were paid £30m by Tottenham Hotspur when he left St James’ Park last summer, was signed from the Ligue 1 club Toulouse in January 2013.
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