eal Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo was on
Tuesday accused of a 14.7 million euro tax
evasion through offshore companies, the public
prosecutor’s office in Madrid announced.
Cristiano Ronaldo
The Portuguese footballer was accused of “four
crimes against the public treasury between
2011-14… which involves tax fraud of 14,768,897
euros ($16.5m, £12.9m)”, the office said in a
statement. “The accused took advantage of a company
structure created in 2010 to hide income
generated in Spain from his image rights from
tax authorities, which is a ‘voluntary’ and
‘conscious’ breach of his fiscal obligations in
Spain,” it said.
Prosecutors accuse the 32-year-old Portugal
forward, who is the world’s highest paid athlete
according to Forbes magazine, of evading tax via
two companies based in the British Virgin Islands
and Ireland.
Ronaldo is the latest football star to fall foul of
Spanish tax authorities.
Argentina international and Barcelona forward
Lionel Messi was sentenced to a 21-month jail
sentence and 2.09-million-euro fine last year for
tax fraud.
The prison term will likely be suspended as is
common in Spain for first offences for non-
violent crimes carrying a sentence of less than
two years.
The 29-year-old and his father Jorge Horacio
Messi were found guilty of using companies in
Belize, Britain, Switzerland and Uruguay to avoid
paying taxes on 4.16 million euros of Messi’s
income earned from his image rights from
2007-09.
The income related to Messi’s image rights that
was hidden includes endorsement deals with
Danone, Adidas, Pepsi-Cola, Procter & Gamble
and the Kuwait Food Company.
Meanwhile Barca’s Argentine defender Javier
Mascherano also agreed a one-year suspended
sentence with authorities for tax fraud last year.
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