A German court has sentenced Uli Hoeness, president of European football champions Bayern Munich, to three years and six months in jail for tax evasion.
He admitted defrauding German tax authorities of millions of euros.
The former World Cup-winning Germany striker, 62, had kept the funds in a secret Swiss bank account.
His lawyer had argued he should escape punishment because he gave himself up. But judges ruled his confession fell short of full disclosure.
The court in the southern city of Munich found Hoeness guilty of “seven serious counts of tax evasion”.
He was initially charged with evading 3.5m euros (£2.9m; $4.9m) in taxes but he then admitted in court to dodging another 15m euros. It finally emerged in court that he owed a total of 27.2m euros.
Hoeness, who helped Germany win the 1972 European Championship and then the World Cup two years later, came clean about his secret bank account last year, filing an amended tax return in the hope of an amnesty in return for paying the tax he owed.
But prosecutors said he did so because investigators were already pursuing his case.
The case has been described as one of the most spectacular of the year by the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Credit: BBC