Manchester City have been accused of attempting to induce a teenager to play for the club by creating a “fake” scouting job for his father and illicitly funnelling thousands of pounds to the player’s family.
The Brazilian playmaker Gabriel Fernando Almeida, now 24, joined City as an academy prospect at the age of 14 in 2011. He was regarded as one of the world’s most exciting young talents, having previously trained in the Sporting Lisbon and Tottenham Hotspur academies. During his spell with City, the teenager, described to The Athletic by one former team-mate as “typically Brazilian, capable of doing tricks an Englishman would not dream of trying”, occasionally trained up with the senior team even at the age of 15.
Now, The Athletic can reveal the remarkable lengths to which City are alleged to have gone in their bid to have the player on their books and how they may have breached Premier League regulations in doing…
