The Madrid prosecutor’s office does not see it easy for Real Madrid coach, Carlo Ancelotti, to be sentenced to just five years in prison for tax evasion.
Resources from the Prosecutor’s Office told the Europa Press agency that they are serving 4 years and nine months of criminal sentence against the 64-year-old Italian, for allegedly defrauding the Spanish Treasury of almost 1. 1 million euros in 2014 and 2015.
The allegations relate to the position of Ancelotti’s apartment during the years in question, which he claimed was Spain. Despite this, his tax returns for the years in question included only his salary from Real Madrid and omitted the source of income from his rights to symbols, which he had sold to other companies.
The prosecutor claims that he made use of a ‘complex’ and ‘confusing’ web of trusts and companies in a bid to ‘avoid paying tax on the income from said image rights’.
The source of income from those rights, according to the prosecutor, amounted to €1,249,590 in 2014 and €2,959,768 in 2015, without Ancelotti or the companies holding the rights paying taxes on those amounts.
The Real Madrid coach, who ran the team from 2013 to 2015, before returning in 2021, is also alleged to have not declared two properties he owned abroad.
This led the Spanish Treasury to calculate that it has avoided €1,062,079 in taxes: €386,361 in 2014 and €675,718 in 2015.
Ancelotti, one of the most important managers of all time, is the newest in a long line of high-profile figures who have fallen victim to Spanish tax authorities.
In November of last year, Colombian singing superstar Shakira finally reached a deal with prosecutors over €14.5 million tax fraud accusations.
And in 2019, former Real Madrid footballer Cristiano Ronaldo paid around €19 million as part of a deal that allowed him to go to prison for tax evasion offences.
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Carlo Ancelotti, former Real Madrid coach and Everton manager, accused of tax fraud in Spain