Football's Secret Trade

Acknowledgments

The book is drawn from more than a decade of working as reporters while we were living in Brazil, Spain and the U.K. Much of that time was spent covering the business of sport for Bloomberg News.

Many of our sources prefer not to be identified. The default setting for people working in the football business is not to engage with reporters. We thank those who spoke to us off-the-record for being generous with their time.

We would also like to show our appreciation to the following:

Lucía Baldomir, Raymond Beaard, Alasdair Bell, Eduardo Carlezzo, Bruno Carvalho, Daniel Cravo, Juan de Dios Crespo, José María Gay, Miguel Ángel Gil, Tim Hewitt, David Leloup, Augusto Lendoiro, Jochen Lösch, Wil van Megen, Marcos Motta, Andrew Orsatti, Ray Ranson, Ariel Reck, Gregor Reiter, Brendan Schwab, Richard Scudamore and Javier Tebas.

On a personal note, Alex would like to thank all the Duff, Santana and Hewitt clans for their help in one way or another and especially his wife Silvia and daughters Madalena and Carlota.

Tariq would like to thank the friends and family whose support was invaluable during the years leading up to this book.