The news broke at the start of 2025, and while it wasn’t entirely surprising, the scale was. Six arrests, a well-known rally driver placed under house arrest, and a network of fake sports sponsorships worth 80 million euros dismantled by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza. The companies involved were issuing invoices for rally sponsorships that had never taken place — or that had taken place under radically different conditions from those declared. The goal was simple: to allow the purchasing companies to deduct non-existent costs and reclaim VAT on fictitious transactions. Confirmed tax evasion exceeded eleven million euros.

This was not an isolated case. Months earlier, in Liguria, three amateur sports associations in the Tigullio area had been dismantled as part of Operation Bulk: 2.5 million euros in invoices for sponsorships that were never delivered. In Latina in 2024, an investigation had involved 114 subjects in a scheme worth 17 million euros. In Rieti, in the same year, approximately two million euros in invoices for non-existent transactions were reconstructed over three years of investigative work.

The phenomenon is systemic, recurring, and — most importantly for those who need to make marketing decisions — it does not only concern those who commit the fraud. It also concerns those who fall victim to it, often in good faith, with fiscal and reputational consequences that are difficult to reverse.

A Bad Practice That Discredits an Entire Industry

Let us be clear. Fake sports sponsorships, inflated invoices, contracts with a one-to-three ratio between declared and actual value, money laundering disguised as commercial agreements: these are crimes, not tax shortcuts. And they are the cancer of an industry that, when it functions correctly, produces measurable and lasting marketing results for brands that choose it with method.

The real problem is not only legal. It is cultural. Every new investigation — Ghost Castle in 2018, Hidden Accounts in the same year, the operations of 2024 and 2025 — fuels a distrust that also affects serious operators, structured agencies, and marketing managers who work with real sports properties and verifiable contracts. The firm hand of the judiciary is necessary. But it is not enough: the market must learn to distinguish.

Warning Signs: How to Recognize a Fake Sports Sponsorship

Those who propose a fake sports sponsorship do not do so with a manifesto. They do it through a series of elements that, taken individually, may seem normal. Taken together, they should raise a red flag.

The tax benefit as the main argument. A legitimate sports sponsorship is sold on marketing grounds: visibility, brand awareness, audience access, content generation, hospitality. If the person making the pitch opens with “you can deduct 100% of the cost” or “it’s all tax-deductible,” the conversation has already taken the wrong direction. The tax benefit may exist — within the limits provided by law — but it cannot be the reason for the purchase.

Absence of a detailed contract with verifiable deliverables. A serious sponsorship produces documents: the contract with the sports property, the activation plan, the rights transferred, the expected KPIs. If the intermediary cannot show exactly what the brand is buying — how many events, what visibility, what content, with what measurability — there is nothing to buy.

Intermediaries without a verifiable track record. Those who have been working in the industry for years have clients, case studies, and a reputation that can be verified. If the contact has no public history, no credible website, no checkable references, the risk is high. The question to ask is simple: who have they already worked with? And are those companies reachable?

Anomalous payment structures. Full advance payments, cash requests, transfers to foreign accounts without apparent reason, pre-packaged “deals” at prices that make no market sense: these are all indicators of an operation built to collect money, not to deliver a service.

Sports properties that are difficult or impossible to trace. Fraudulent operations often cite real sporting events — a rally, a circuit race, a regional competition — but the agreement with the property does not exist or is fictitious. A direct check with the event organisation or the relevant sports federation is the fastest way to dismantle a false proposal.

What Distinguishes a Legitimate Sports Sponsorship

A legitimate sports sponsorship has a recognisable structure. There is an agreement with a real property — a team, a rider or driver, an event, a federation — whose rights are defined and measurable. There is an activation plan that translates those rights into content, appearances, hospitality, and co-marketing activities. There is a contract that establishes duration, conditions, and the obligations of both parties. And there is a reporting system that allows the brand to evaluate results over time.

The process is not quick, and it is not cheap in the sense intended by those looking for a shortcut. But it is the only one that produces real value: not just immediate visibility, but brand equity building, access to communities of enthusiasts, original content, and — when well structured — an effect that lasts well beyond the duration of the contract itself.

We have been working in this industry since 1995. Over thirty years, we have seen many of these stories. And the constant is always the same: the problem is not sports sponsorship as a tool. The problem is those who use it as a cover for something else.

The Cultural Change That Is Needed

The Guardia di Finanza investigations do their job. But the market must do its own. It means marketing managers must demand documentation, verify properties, and engage with agencies that have a verifiable history. It means the tax benefit cannot be the starting point for any serious commercial conversation. And it means the industry — agencies, sports properties, marketing professionals — must be the first to report distortions, not the last to suffer them.

Sports sponsorship is a powerful tool. Used well, it builds brands over time, generates access to global audiences, and produces content that no other format can replicate. Used badly — or used as a vehicle for dirty money — it is a loss for everyone: for those who fall into the trap, for those who work honestly, and for sport itself.