The agent of English Premier League Player of the Season Kevin De Bruyne has been charged by police after he was taken to prison following police reportedly raiding his house in response to a complaint by the Man City midfielder.
Belgian police charged Patrick De Koster, De Bruyne’s longstanding representative, over a commission involved in a transfer featuring the midfielder, said to have been his move from Chelsea to Bundesliga side Wolfsburg for €22 million (around $26 million) in 2014.
De Koster is understood to have initially been arrested and interrogated on Thursday as part of a scandal sparked by a complaint from De Bruyne in 2019.
“[He] is suspected of money laundering and forgery,” Eric Van Duysse, the the spokesperson for the public prosecutor’s office, told Sporza, which reported that De Koster spent a night in jail as he was “questioned for hours”.
“He has been transferred to prison after the decision of the investigating judge in Brussels.
“The investigation is the result of a complaint from Kevin De Bruyne.”
The Central Anti-Corruption Service is overseeing the inquiry into the conduct of the manager of J&S International Football Management, which acts for a range of Belgian professional players.
De Koster has been De Bruyne’s agent since 2004 and is said to have received around $7 million when he subsequently moved from Wolfsburg to City in August 2015.
He helped to agree the two-time Premier League winner’s new deal of around $340,000 a week in January 2018 and was still actively representing the 29-year-old until recently.
