The Guardian and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ)

These stories uncovered how Roman Abramovich, a billionaire ally of Vladimir Putin, propelled himself and Chelsea FC to the pinnacle of world football, apparently by using a network of offshore companies to flout the game’s financial rules. They also showed how Abramovich teamed up with football’s most powerful agent to trade naive young footballer players like commodities, often without their knowledge. And they uncovered how an even richer Russian oligarch, Alexei Mordashov, sought to transfer £1bn of assets to his partner, on the day he was hit with EU sanctions..

The common thread is the murky but critical role played by Cyprus, a small Mediterranean island that has for decades served as a backdoor into the EU for Russian money. Crucially, we revealed how “enablers” - such as financial service providers and accountants - scrambled to help wealthy clients avoid the bite of sanctions.

Our reporters reconstructed opaque offshore transactions via painstaking analysis of millions of documents, in multiple languages, obtained from the largest ever leak of financial data from Cyprus. The findings raised serious questions over the efficacy of international sanctions and rules governing football finance and triggered investigations by the authorities.

The team lifted the lid on how Abramovich bankrolled Chelsea’s success, via tens of millions of pounds in hidden offshore payments. Beneficiaries included agents for some of football’s most celebrated figures, including Eden Hazard and Antonio Conte. The Premier League and the Football Association are investigating some of these transactions for potential breaches of football’s financial rules. Punishments could include significant points deductions.

Our reporters also revealed the power that Abramovich wielded over players themselves, thanks to a strategic alliance with “super agent” Pini Zahavi. The duo used offshore companies to forge arrangements with cash-strapped football clubs that allowed them to trade the rights to players’ careers and, effectively, their lives. The deals were weighted so that the powerful pair would benefit if the youngsters made it to the top, while the players could be cut loose if they didn’t reach their potential, or fell victim to injury. Investment in “third party rights” deals such as these have been likened to “modern slavery” and are outlawed in football today. Our findings raised questions over whether the extent of such deals was much greater than known and whether the practice continued even after football’s governing bodies banned it. Some players hadn’t even known that they were owned by Abramovich and spoke of how their careers had suffered due to contracts they signed while still only teenagers.

The team also uncovered how PwC, one of the world’s biggest accountancy firms, helped Russia’s richest oligarch, Alexei Mordashov, transfer £1bn of shares in the tour operator Tui, on the day the EU sanctioned him in connection with the war in Ukraine. The story resulted in the Cypriot police force launching an investigation into potential sanctions-busting and ultimately to the FBI dispatching a team to Cyprus to assist with the investigation, as part of a global crackdown on oligarchs and enablers.