A footballer’s career is a relatively short one, and in the case of Luciano D’Onofrio it was particularly brief, ending when he suffered a multiple fracture of a leg bone at the age of 28. During his subsequent career on the sidelines of the pitch, D’Onofrio prospered in the dark side of the football business.
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Now, at 61, despite his many convictions, the man who was once an agent for Zinedine Zidane and Didier Deschamps continues his activities in seeming impunity, according to documents from Football Leaks, obtained by German weekly Der Spiegel and transmitted to the journalistic collective European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), of which Mediapart is a founding member.
D’Onofrio has a clear talent for recycling his activities, from buying stakes in players, including 15-year-old minors, to transfer deals and secret business with a club in the Middle East.
The contacts book of the agent, who was born in Italy and who grew up in Belgium, is worth its weight in gold. He began learning the off-field business of football in the 1980s, first as sporting director for Inter Milan then as general manager of FC Porto. He became an agent in the 1990s, when he was the representative for French stars like Zidane and Deschamps, and also Marcel Desailly and Christophe Dugarry, along with several top Belgian players.
Through the services of his longstanding frontman, Maurizio Delmenico, who administrates a structure of at least a dozen offshore companies created by the agent, D’Onofrio joined the management team of Belgian club Standard de Liège (in which he convinced the late owner of French club Marseille, Robert Louis-Dreyfus, to invest). He did so while continuing to work as an agent, a double role that is prohibited because of the obvious conflicts of interest it creates.
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In 1995, D’Onofrio was handed a one-year suspended jail sentence and a fine for forgery and breach of trust for his part in a secret funding scandal at French club FC Toulon, in which about 2 million euros was siphoned off from transfer deals. He was also convicted for his role in financial irregularities surrounding the transfer of players to Marseille football club between 1987 and 1992, and was handed a nine-month suspended prison term before his appeal against the sentence ended in his acquittal. In 1998, he was given a three-month suspended prison sentence for obtaining secret commission payments from Paris Saint-Germain football club between 1986 and 1990.
In 2006 he was given a two-year prison sentence of which 18 months were suspended, a 375,000-euro fine, and a five-year ban from activities linked to football for his part in another transfer deal scandal at Marseille, this time between 1997 and 1999. This involved falsifying the true sum paid to clubs for transfers of players, in which the real fee was bloated and players were then secretly handed a part of the surplus in exchange for lower wages. The system, in which D’Onofrio (and others) creamed off a commission as intermediary, in turn allowed the club to pay lower employer’s social contributions and taxes. D’Onofrio’s sentence was upheld on appeal.
Meanwhile, in Belgium, he was investigated over evidence that he was paid secret commissions in transfers of players to Standard de Liège. The case was opened in 2004 but D’Onofrio, who was sent for trial in 2015 and who faced a five-year jail sentence for moneylaundering and forgery if he was found guilty, struck a deal with the Liège public prosecutor’s office, allowing him to escape the trial in return for a payment of almost 1.6 million euros (a sum recently revealed by Belgian weekly Le Vif ).
According to the regulations of world football governing body Fifa, an agent is required to have “an impeccable reputation”. But for D’Onofrio, it was still not game over, even when barred from football-related activities, for Maurizio Delmenico had become qualified by Fifa to act as an agent, and was thus able to act on behalf of D’Onofrio.
The latter took care of his network, and forged relations with Doyen Sports Investments, a company that had become a key player in the business world of football since 2010, as will be detailed in our forthcoming reports. In January 2014, D’Onofrio was among the prestigious cast of guests invited to the lavish 35th birthday party of Doyen Sports’ director, Nelio Lucas.
While D’Onofrio was forced to pay more than 1.5 million euros in 2015 to settle the case against him in Belgium, the documents obtained from Football Leaks demonstrate that he could well afford it. In 2014, he earned 4,033,184 euros from the transfer of French international centre back Eliaqim Mangala from FC Porto to Manchester City.
In August 2011, when Mangala left Standard de Liège to move to FC Porto, a transfer that cost 12.5 million euros, D’Onofrio was involved as an agent. But he was not paid a cash sum for his services. Instead, Porto gave his London-registered company Robi Plus, officially managed by Delmenico, a 10% stake of Mangala’s economic rights. The same procedure was used in the transfer to Porto of Belgian midfielder Steven Defour. This meant that when Porto would sell on the players, Robi Plus would be paid 10% of the transfer fee.
This is the system called Third Party Ownership (TPO), whereby an individual or a company own a percentage of a football player’s economic rights, for which the investor receives a proportionate part of a player’s future transfer fee, which was banned by Fifa in 2015. Fifa’s current president, Gianni Infantino, previously general secretary of European football governing body UEFA, denounced the system as “a kind of modern slavery”.
At the time of Mangala’s transfer, FC Porto disclosed no details of the deal. But they were finally revealed in 2013 by French investigative TV programme Cash Investigation, produced by public broadcaster France 2 (see below). In a phone conversation, Delmenico admitted that D’Onofrio was behind Robi Plus, while D’Onofrio, confronted by the programme’s journalists outside his home in Liège, escaped an interview by running off through the streets.
As far as we can ascertain, Fifa took no action over the Mangala transfer. Porto, which remunerated Robi Plus, did not answer questions we submitted to the club.
Meanwhile, several days after the Cash Investigation programme was broadcast, D’Onofrio put in place a simple business rearrangement: Robi Plus sold the 10% stake in Mangala to a Vienna-registered company called Danubio, which was also managed by Delmenico.
Internal documents from Porto which we have gained access to clearly indicate that the Portuguese club was aware of the structure in place: the commission was destined for D’Onofrio. Robi Plus was wound down on August 25th 2015, while Danubio is still active.
It was not by chance that D’Onofrio succeeded in reaching such a deal with FC Porto. He had maintained a close relationship with the club for which he had worked as general manager at the end of the 1980s, and the revelations over his secret business activities did nothing to change that.
In January 2016 FC Porto needed to bring in funds, and sought to sell French midfielder Giannelli Imbula as fast as possible. Six months earlier, Imbula had been transferred to Porto from Marseiile for 20 million euros, a deal pushed by Doyen Sports. The midfielder did not become part of Porto’s regular team, but despite this he was sold by the Portuguese club to English Premier League club Stoke City for 24 million euros, the highest sum ever paid by Stoke in a transfer deal.
A document signed on February 1st 2016, but which was falsely dated as January 13th 2016, details that an Amsterdam-registered company called Kick International Agency BV was paid 1.2 million euros during the transfer. The manager of Kick International Agency was Delmenico (despite the notoriety of the duo he formed with Delmenico, D’Onofrio clearly saw no need to find a new partner). On February 1st, Porto sent directly to the banned agent documents related to Imbula’s work contract and also for his image rights.
D’Onofrio would sometimes be paid a straightforward commission, as was the case with the transfer of Argentine striker Lisandro López or, more usually, was given a stake in a player’s economic rights in the expectancy of future gains in a transfer deal. When Ghanaian defender Daniel Opare moved in a free transfer from Standard de Liège to Porto in July 2014, Danubio was nevertheless paid 500,000 euros and given a 25% stake of any future transfer deal. A similar agreement surrounded the transfer from Standard de Liège to Porto of Turkish goalkeeper Sinan Bolat.
The sums represented in D’Onofrio’s TPO deals can occasionally appear illogical. In September 2013, Porto and Danubio signed an agreement giving each a half share of the economic rights of Belgian forward Joris Kayembe, transferred to Porto from Standard de Liège. Then, in May 2014, FC Porto bought from Danubio another 35% of the player for 2.5 million euros. Which meant that this little-known player, which the website of reference on players’ values, transfermarkt, estimated was at the time worth 500,000 euros, was suddenly valued by the TPO deal at more than 7 million euros.
D’Onofrio was particularly interested in making deals involving very young players, for it was on these that the potential future returns were highest. Portuguese law stipulates however that an agent cannot be remunerated when representing a minor. But D’Onofrio found a way around this.
Julio Generoso was aged just 15 when, on August 16th 2013, Porto and Danubio, this time via agent Paul Stefani, signed an agreement that gave D’Onofrio a 50% stake in any future transfer deal for the player. In the clauses of the agreement, D’Onofrio’s stake would be reduced to 20% if the youngster were to play in five matches with Porto’s senior team, for which the Belgian agent would be paid 2.5 million euros. The EIC was unable to establish whether Julio Generoso and his family were at least made aware of the contract that concerned him.
D’Onofrio dabbled in other types of secret deals. According to reports by media specialised in football, Belgian forward Célestin Djim belongs to Porto and has twice been loaned out to other clubs, firstly to Portuguese second-division side Freamunde and, the following season in July 2015, to French club FC Metz.
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But according to documents we have had access to, the reality is quite different. In June 2015, Célestin Djim was sold to Saudi club Al-Hilal for 3.5 million euros. On July 18th 2015 it was therefore Al-Hilal who loaned the player. The reason for this hidden manoeuvre is unclear, but it may be speculated that if Porto had loaned Celestin Djim to FC Metz D’Onofrio would have received no payment.
Luciano D’Onofrio was due to receive 50% of the transfer fee. Internal documents from Porto refer to a commission payment of 75,000 euros made to “Sr Luciano” and, above all, 1.2 million euros because of his stake in the player.
But not all of D’Onofrio’s dealings with the Middle East were secret: he was among a delegation that accompanied a visit to Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai by Princess Astrid of Belgium (sister of King Philippe) between March 21st-27th 2015, which was a royal trade mission. D’Onofrio was present in the delegation in the role ofconsultant for pharmaceutical firm Mithra, specialized in medical products for women (such as in the fields of contraception and the menopause). D’Onofrio told the press that he had even signed several contracts for the firm during the visit.
Meanwhile, a question is raised over the significant presence of Belgian players in Saudi club Al-Hilal, with which D’Onfrio enjoys close relations and which often quickly loans players after their purchase on to other clubs abroad.
Some of these convoluted arrangements have repercussions in France, as in the case of Brazilian midfielder Carlos Eduardo, who moved to Porto from Estoril in 2013. He was then lent by Porto to French club Nice for the 2014-2015 season. Nice had wanted to buy the player, and had been given a priority option to do so, but was inexplicably beaten to the deal by Al-Hilal.
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Nice, which was due to receive 10% of the transfer fee received by Porto if ever Eduardo was sold to another club, threatened to take action against Porto with Fifa. In the end, Porto compensated Nice by lending it Portuguese winger and full back Ricardo Pereira.
When Nice managing director Julien Fournier later discovered more about the deal for Eduardo, he wrote to Porto: “You had told us that the transfer was concluded for 5.5 million euros. We were very surprised to discover that the sum was only 2 million euros.” In fact, press reports continue to put the transfer deal at 7 million euros.
Carlos Eduardo may not have had a say in the matter, but his remuneration by Al-Hilal was considerable, with a 1.8-million-euro yearly salary and a 540,000-euro bonus upon signing. As for FC Porto, it is difficult to understand why the club would sell the player for such a low fee. In July 2015, Porto’s legal affairs director sent an email to the club’s chief executive in which he wrote: “I think we should call the player’s agent [D’Onofrio] to settle a part of the problem. He had signed a contract without telling us, which made our position fragile.” Apparently, D’Onofrio was capable of imposing his will on Porto.
Luciano D’Onofrio declined to answer questions from the EIC.
In 2007, he told French publication Foot Magazine: “However much I try, I carry the label of being a gangster, whereas I’m an adventurer, but honest.” One year after that interview he was banned from the business.
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- Mediapart's report in French, on which this article is based, can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse