Madrid: Cristiano Ronaldo is returning to Madrid for a court date Tuesday in which he could be fined 18.8 million euros (USD 21.4 million) for tax fraud as part of a deal reached with the Spanish taxman.
As part of an agreement arranged in June with the former Real Madrid player, lawyers, prosecutors are also asking that the Portuguese attacker, who last summer left the Spanish capital for Italian champions Juventus, be handed a 23-month jail sentence.
However, Ronaldo would not spend a day in prison as sentences of up to two years are generally not enforced in Spain for first-time offenders in non-violent crimes.
The hearing, due to start at 9:50 am (14.20pm IST), is expected to last just a few minutes as the deal is officially presented to the judge. He in turn will give the final sentence Tuesday or the coming days, according to a spokesman for the court in northern Madrid.
Ronaldo will not be given special treatment when he arrives and will have to climb up the courthouse steps amid a likely media scrum despite the five-time Ballon d’Or winner’s lawyers asking he be allowed to enter the building by car to avoid the spotlight.
The court president refused the request, and said Monday that despite his (Ronaldo’s) ‘great fame’, he wouldn’t ‘compromise security’ at the building, according to a court document. Ronaldo’s request to appear via video-conference was also denied.
Madrid prosecutors opened a probe into Ronaldo in June 2017 and he was questioned in July that same year.
“I have never hidden anything, nor have I had the intention of evading taxes,” he told the court then, according to a statement from the sports agency which represents him, ‘Gestifute’.
Prosecutors have accused him of having used companies in low-tax foreign jurisdictions – notably the British Virgin Islands and Ireland – to avoid paying the taxes due in Spain on his image rights between 2011 and 2014.
The deal between Spain’s taxman and his lawyers has allowed Ronaldo to avoid having to sit through a long trial that could have damaged his image and seen him handed a heftier sentence.
Ronaldo is not the only footballer to have fallen foul of Spain’s tax authorities. Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, once Ronaldo’s big La Liga rival, paid a two-million-euro fine in 2016 in his own tax wrangle and received a 21-month jail term.
AFP