Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is due to appear in a Spanish court later today, accused of evading millions in tax.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors allege Ronaldo, reported to be the world\u2019s highest paid athlete, has evaded \u20ac14.7m ($17.3m; \u00a313.1m) in tax since 2010.
\nThe Real Madrid star has previously denied the allegation, saying his \u201cconscience is clear\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo, 32, is the latest in a string of footballers to be pursued by the Spanish tax authorities.<\/p>\n
Argentina\u2019s Lionel Messi, who plays for Barcelona, was handed a 21-month prison sentence after being found guilty of the same charge last year.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the court ruled he could pay \u20ac252,000 in place of jail time.<\/p>\n
However, Messi was only accused of evading \u20ac4.1m in tax, \u20ac10.6m less than Ronaldo, who will give evidence in his case at a court in the Madrid suburb of Pozuelo de Alarcon on Monday.<\/p>\n
According to prosecutors, Ronaldo allegedly took \u201cadvantage of a company structure created in 2010 to hide income generated in Spain from his image rights from tax authorities\u201d which was a \u201cvoluntary and conscious breach of his fiscal obligations in Spain\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ronaldo\u2019s management has also denied the allegations.<\/p>\n
But if the case is sent to trial and he is found guilty, the Portuguese forward could face a fine of \u201cat least \u20ac28m\u201d and a prison sentence of three-and-a-half years, the Gestha union of experts at Spain\u2019s Inland Revenue says.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Credit: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is due to appear in a Spanish court later today, accused of evading millions in tax. Prosecutors allege Ronaldo, reported to be the world\u2019s highest paid athlete, has evaded \u20ac14.7m ($17.3m; \u00a313.1m) in tax since 2010. The Real Madrid star has previously denied the allegation, saying his \u201cconscience is clear\u201d. Ronaldo, 32, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[9755,9756,9757],"class_list":["post-340808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","tag-cristiano-ronald","tag-ronaldo-in-court","tag-ronaldo-tax-return"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=340808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=340808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=340808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=340808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}