Carlo Ancelotti, the Real Madrid coach, is being charged by state prosecutors in Spain with tax fraud. They allege that during his initial ten-year tenure at the club, he concealed a portion of his income through the employment of shell businesses.
Spain’s BARCELONA Carlo Ancelotti, the Real Madrid coach, is being charged by state prosecutors in Spain with tax fraud. They allege that during his initial ten-year tenure at the club, he concealed a portion of his income through the employment of shell businesses.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Madrid prosecutors stated that they are requesting a four-year, nine-month prison sentence for Ancelotti, charging him of two charges of tax fraud. By just disclosing the money he received from Real Madrid and leaving out the money he received from image rights, they said the Italian coach had deceived the public out of one million euros in 2014 and 2015.
A lot of managers and athletes in the professional ranks form businesses that hold the rights to utilise their names and likenesses for advertising. Prosecutors, however, contend that Ancelotti concealed his excess income by creating a “confusing” web of shell corporations. According to the prosecution, Ancelotti employed foreign-based businesses “lacking any real activity” “so that neither he nor the mentioned companies had to pay taxes on the large sums earned in Spain or outside our country.”
Before returning to the team in 2021, the 64-year-old Ancelotti coached Madrid from 2013 to 2015.
One of the most successful football coaches is Ancelotti. He is the only coach in history to have won four Champions League championships—two with Real Madrid and two with AC Milan—as well as domestic league championships in England, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France.
He is the most recent in a long line of well-known soccer players to be targeted by Spanish authorities for unpaid taxes; however, none of them have been imprisoned as of yet.
2019 saw former Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho enter a guilty plea to tax fraud, which resulted in a one-year suspended sentence. Prominent athletes such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have been convicted of tax fraud in Spain. Like Ancelotti, Mourinho, Ronaldo, and Messi were also charged for hiding income from image rights by utilising shell corporations based outside of Spain.
Ronaldo was sentenced to two years of suspended prison, which he was not required to serve, and agreed to pay a fine of around 19 million euros (then $21.6 million) in 2019.
Messi and his father were convicted of cheating tax officials out of 4.1 million euros (about $4.6 million). However, they were spared jail time by paying substantial fines.
For first-time offenders in Spain, a judge has the option to suspend a sentence of less than two years.
Madrid, who is atop the Spanish league, will take on Leipzig on Wednesday in an attempt to advance to the quarterfinals of the Champions League.
