A brass plate, a serviced office and eleven companies that own each other in a circle. The first chapter of a four-part investigation starts where the club's money goes when it leaves the country.
The plate
The registered address is a door between a dentist and a travel agent. Behind it, according to the filings, sit the holding company of a club with a 30,000-seat ground, its two largest creditors, and the company that owns the training ground it rents.
The circle
Company A owns 60% of company B. Company B owns 100% of company C. Company C owns 40% of company A. Somewhere inside the loop is the club, and outside it, on paper, is nobody at all.
Eight months of filings across six jurisdictions produced one name, once, in a document that was withdrawn nine days after it was lodged. Chapter two is about who saw it.