The Spanish prosecutor’s office has filed a lawsuit against Real Madrid star, Cristiano Ronaldo for allegedly defrauding the country’s tax authorities of 14.7 million euros. According to the prosecutor’s office, the football player used a “business structure” to hide income made from his image rights.
The government’s office alleges that Ronaldo had defrauded the tax authorities of 1.4 million euros in 2011, 1.7 million euros in 2012, 3.2 million euros in 2013 and 8.5 million euros in 2014.
He denied the allegation.
Ronaldo is the world’s highest-paid sportsperson for the second successive year, according to Forbes’ annual list of the world’s wealthiest people; and earned $93m from salary, bonuses and endorsements last year. He’s had a successful career and has played for some of the most influential football clubs in the world including Sporting CP (Portugal) Manchester United FC (England) and Real Madrid (Spain). Just last month, he led his team to win the prestigious UEFA Champions League at the final played in Cardiff, Wales, UK.
Ronaldo is not the player to face lawsuits from the Spanish authority in recent times. Just last year, Barcelona star and Argentine international Lionel Messi was successfully prosecuted by the authority for defrauding authorities of 4.1 million euros on image right. In May, Brazilian international, Neymar da Silva Santos or simply known as Neymar (another Barcelona’s player) was cleared of fraud but he still faces a corruption trial in Spain in connection with the value of his 2013 transfer from Santos to Barcelona. He, too, denied wrongdoing.
He, too, denied wrongdoing.
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