In this article ‘graft’ means corruption or similar, rather than ‘hard work’. Slightly confusing.
Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft
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Re: Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft
#12Tax minimization schemes go through trends and fads just like any other area of creativity. When the accountants and lawyers come up with a scheme for one celebrity footballer, it is likely to get used again for others. Once it becomes common enough the government closes the loophole and the creatives go back to finding the next scheme.
Sometimes the court decides the scheme is illegal and then they go after all those that used it. Politically it looks good to grab money from millionaires that look like they were exploiting your system. I doubt the footballers know much, if anything, about the details of the schemes they are involved in. The accountant says 'leave to me, I can save you millions' and the footballer concentrates on playing.
Re: Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft
#13Off topic but "Rui Pinto, a Portuguese national" Now I remember doing a case study on the Ford Pinto in South America, Pinto translates into a rude word in Portugese doesn't it??? Is it like Dick (Richard) in English. Or am I missing some subtlety here. Edit: Link for Translation http://www.youswear.com/sitemap.asp?language=Portuguese+(bra...
Yes, you are right! Pinto is a very common surname that can also mean "dick". When used in this context it does not call a lot of attention - but it would be unthinkable to call a product "Pinto"
In Brazil only. In Portugal it's just the name of the little chicks (chicken after they hatch).
Re: Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft
#14This is just a result of the culture in the areas where soccer is most popular. Most notably, south america, where the sneaky underdog grifter that defrauds others is almost a cultural icon and hero rather than a scoundrel.
Re: Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft
#15In this article ‘graft’ means corruption or similar, rather than ‘hard work’. Slightly confusing.
Thanks for mentioning this. The article at least seems clear from the start it's talking about tax fraud and evasion but that headline had me expecting a very different article.
This may be another case of English speaking communities being separated by the same language.
Re: Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft
#16Interesting that Messi had tax problems in Spain as well. Neither of these guys are filling out their own taxes. Why did their accountants think it was a good idea to complete their taxes in a way that wound up getting them in trouble? Or why did Spain think these guys were alluring targets to spend finite prosecutorial resources on?
Mourinho (a famous coach) too.
Re: Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft
#17In this article ‘graft’ means corruption or similar, rather than ‘hard work’. Slightly confusing.
Thanks for mentioning this. The article at least seems clear from the start it's talking about tax fraud and evasion but that headline had me expecting a very different article. This may be another case of English speaking communities being separated by the same language.
Huh. Indeed it is. I'm American, and I did not even realize that "graft" meant "hard work" in British English.
Re: Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft
#18You can watch an excellent summary about Ronaldo and Messi's tax fines in this short video from Tifo Football published today: Ronaldo & Messi's Tax Fines & Suspended Prison Sentences Explained : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP5vuflIdrQ In fact, Tifo Football on YouTube is one of the best sources of news, information and analysis on football (soccer) - regardless of whether you like football or not. The quality is…
Relatedly -- The Football Leaks series by a number of large journalism outfits in Europe are illuminating. My favorite set is about Doyen, a Turkish group hiding their illegal ownership in a number of players who happen to be founded by one of the people implicated in Trump's failed Trump SoHo project (Tevkik Arif). We don't do nearly enough to stop and punish white collar crime:
https://theblacksea.eu/stories/football-leaks/football-leaks...
Re: Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft
#19In this article ‘graft’ means corruption or similar, rather than ‘hard work’. Slightly confusing.
The title uses the word "soccer", which should lead you to expect the American meaning of "graft" rather than the British meaning.
Re: Elite Soccer’s Culture of Graft
#20In this article ‘graft’ means corruption or similar, rather than ‘hard work’. Slightly confusing.
Graft is a funny word. It seems to come from horticulture and means "to join or unite". Then it's used as a synonym for work, especially hard work, which doesn't have an obvious relation to the horticultural use. Then there's the corruption meaning, which is a metaphor of how a parasite forms a union with its host, I presume. So if you're being metaphoric, "graft" can be used for a harmonic union and an abusive union. There aren't a lot of words like that, I think.