Secrets by subscription

Recently: Why does Europe run on American tech? Filippo Blancato on a bargain that seemed to make sense at the time.

Today: Prosecutors say the man who ran German foreign intelligence until 2005 paid his longtime aide, still on the staff, to keep the reports coming for 12 years. … In 1961, the same agency’s chief hunter of Soviet moles turned out to be one himself. … &c.

For members: Why would the owners of Manchester City Football Club risk everything to cheat for years “on an industrial scale”? Standpoints from Sarath K. Ganji, Justin Callais, and Miranda Patrucić. … & What do Middle Eastern states want with European football clubs? Ganji on autocratic governments’ ambitious move into the global game.

+ New music from Spacemoth …

Developments

Standing order

On Tuesday, federal police detained August Hanning, 80, at his home near Münster. Hanning was president of the BND, the country’s foreign intelligence service, from 1998 to 2005. Officers in Bavaria arrested his former office manager, Manfred D., who left the service in March. Federal prosecutors say D. agreed in 2010 to keep Hanning supplied, for pay, and had passed on about 2,000 classified documents by June 2022. Hanning hasn’t commented. Hamburg prosecutors came across the papers last September, searching his home in their case against Christina Block, the steakhouse heiress on trial over the abduction of her own children.

Private practice

Prosecutors say Hanning used the papers in the consulting business he set up after leaving government in 2009. Once, they say, he wrote an analysis from them for a foreign security service, and for years he fed “political information” to a member of a second intelligence service. They name no countries. Who was he working for? The German magazine Der Spiegel reports that investigators believe the analysis was for an Azerbaijani agent, and Süddeutsche Zeitung, that Russia wasn’t involved. Konstantin von Notz, a Green on parliament’s intelligence oversight committee, wants to bar former top officials from private consulting after they leave.

‘Equally corrupt friends’

Here in The Signal, Tena Prelec has looked at why so much dirty money settles in Europe. European policy makers, she says, see a problem only when it “is coming from hostile states.” Gulf money flows in, and “very few politicians care.” “The same can be said of Azerbaijan,” she says. “It’s an old Soviet country, but it has friendly relations with Western governments, so it too gets a pass.” The money often comes “not only from the West’s geopolitical enemies,” Prelec says, “but its equally corrupt friends.” … See “Continental.”

The favorite

On November 6, 1961, the West Germans arrested Heinz Felfe, who ran the BND’s counterintelligence against the Soviets. Felfe, a former SS officer, had worked for Soviet intelligence since 1950. He was a favorite of Reinhard Gehlen, the service’s founding president, and briefed him personally on Soviet matters. A 1963 CIA damage assessment put the items he’d compromised at roughly 15,000. He got 14 years for treason, and in 1969 West Germany traded him to the East, where he taught criminology at Humboldt University.

Meanwhile

Russian officials say a lab technician at Siberia’s anti-plague institute died of “pneumonia of unknown etiology,” and keep more than 60 colleagues isolated there. … Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, calls a snap election for November 29. … Britain reportedly plans to expel about 30 Israeli diplomats if Israel closes the British consulate in Jerusalem. … Turkey and Pakistan pledge forces for Saudi Arabia after Houthi attacks aimed at Mecca. … Flávio Bolsonaro, the jailed ex-president’s son, edges President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 47 percent to 45 in Brazil’s first round (see “A programming note”). … & Lake Zurich drops low enough to expose a 1909 water-level mark off Stäfa, Switzerland.

Thoughts? concierge@thesgnl.com.

From the despatch

‘Irrefutable’

Why would the owners of Manchester City Football Club risk everything to cheat for years “on an industrial scale”? Standpoints from Sarath K. Ganji, Justin Callais, and Miranda Patrucić.

On Tuesday, an independent commission found that Manchester City had passed off more than £830 million of its owner’s money as sponsorship from Abu Dhabi companies over nine seasons. The owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is a vice president of the United Arab Emirates. An analysis of the commission’s figures finds that his share grew in all but one season, through league titles in 2012 and 2014, and peaked in 2017–18, when the now-legendary Pep Guardiola’s team won the Premier League with 100 points. That season, the club’s books showed about £146 million from its Abu Dhabi sponsors. They paid £11 million, and the sheikh paid the rest. City says it’s innocent, cites “a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence,” and has appealed. But the commission has already seen the “evidence” and says it was “concocted well after the event.” On ITV, the former Arsenal and England striker Ian Wright calls what City did “cheating on an industrial scale.” The league’s punishments run as far as expelling the club altogether.

Feature

Total ownership

From Shadow Play: What do Middle Eastern states want with European football clubs? Sarath K. Ganji on autocratic governments’ ambitious move into the global game.

The 2026 Spanish Supercopa final—between Barcelona and Real Madrid—didn’t take place in Spain. It took place at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium, 30 kilometers north of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Every Supercopa final has been held in Saudi since 2020—with one exception, when the Covid-19 pandemic forced the tournament back to Seville in 2021—as every one will be until at least 2029.

Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates hosted the Asian Cup in 2019; Qatar did in 2024; Saudi Arabia will in 2027. That’s three Asian Cups in a row, in a corner of Asia that represents just over 7 percent of the continent’s total area—most of it desert—and 1 percent of its population.

Qatar held the World Cup in 2022; it’ll be Saudi in 2034.

The Gulf has poured money into football. Since 2008, its three wealthiest states have bought more than 20 clubs around the world—including three of the biggest in Europe: The United Arab Emirates owns Manchester City; Qatar, Paris Saint-Germain; and Saudi Arabia, Newcastle United.

We know this isn’t the first time ultra-wealthy interests have brought big money into the game—and transformed it. But these aren’t just ultra-wealthy interests. They’re ultra-wealthy governments. And they’re all dictatorships.

So what are they doing—and what do they want out of it?

Music

‘Do We Exist?’

Spacemoth is the looping, introspective project of Maryam Qudus, a producer and engineer at Tiny Telephone Recording in Oakland, California …