I highly doubt a football club could have such power. The ability to sweep this under the rug for so long, just so he would not lose value or something or whatever, isn't that possible for a football team. How do we know? Because there has been other teams and players that had bad stuff and all of that was on the news, so that is an important point, we have already seen them fail to do it before, so they are not that powerful.
Plus, why would anyone listen to them? Like why would any newspaper not write about it? That is a huge click material and would be able to actually get it. The only reason is because the news became public now, with the allegations turning into criminal suit, and that is why we are seeing it today, nothing more.
It's just funny though, aren't you in this internet space to have seen over the were and how even players get away with certain things and you still think clubs don't have the power to suppress things like this? Lemme ask you, since you started football and knowing Ronaldo and Messi, have you heard that they evaded paying tax while in Spain whilst playing for their different clubs? If course no, so why then did you start reading about it after the left the clubs in Spain? Now think about this for a minute. Or should I refer you to the Dani Alves case?