Agent Pini Zahavi banned for two months by FA over false declaration

The super-agent Pini Zahavi has been suspended from acting as a player intermediary for two months after a Football Association investigation.

Zahavi, 78, was found to have misrepresented his actions during the transfer of the Israel international Beram Kayal from Celtic to Brighton in 2015.

An FA regulatory commission found in February that Zahavi, who had said he was solely representing the interests of Brighton in the transfer, was also working on behalf of Kayal, and that his failure to reveal this dual interest meant a failure to pay the appropriate tax on the transfer.

During an investigation Zahavi admitted to the dual representation and the commission accepted in mitigation that the agent had no previous disciplinary record. But the size of the fees involved – calculated at £70,000 – were considered sufficient to merit a strong sanction.

Zahavi was banned for three months but appealed against the decision, with his lawyer Nick De Marco QC arguing that the commission had wrongly claimed Zahavi had previously acted for Kayal and that the punishment was out of sync with other similar offences. An appeal board accepted these arguments but rejected another claim that Zahavi had unwittingly made a false statement.

As a result of the appeal, the sanction was reduced to two months, starting from 4 March, with Zahavi not allowed to undertake any of the functions of an intermediary during that time. He was also made to pay a fine of £5,000. Zahavi is one of the world’s most renowned agents, representing Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski, RB Leipzig’s Christopher Nkunku and Tottenham’s Pierre-Emile Højbjerg among others.