In what could pass for ‘let’s bury the hatchet’ step, Portugal international Cristiano Ronaldo has doled out £12.1m (about N5.6billion) to the Spanish authorities while accepting two-year suspended prison term as part of the deal to end lingering tax dispute
The 33-year-old appears to be in a hurry to start his Italy sojourn on a clean slate wasting no time clearing debts and cutting all ties with Madrid and Spain following his transfer from Real to Juve. There are also suggestions he plans to pull his business interests out of the capital.
Spanish radio station Cadena Cope reported that Ronaldo has deposited the £12.1m and will also pay a further £4.7m in fines and costs. He will never have to serve the prison sentence because first offences for administrative crimes involving terms of two years or less are not custodial in Spain
For a long time, Spanish fiscal law turned a blind eye to image rights companies being set up by players outside of Spain.
That enabled players to only pay tax on what they earned in the country with money from image rights designated as foreign income.
In Ronaldo’s case, his image-rights income was allegedly managed by a company in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven.
Spanish tax authorities changed their tune in 2014 and started cracking down on the practice and a raft of investigations began.
In the last three years, a host of La Liga’s biggest stars have had to face accusations similar to that of Ronaldo, prominent in the list are Argentina international Lionel Messi, Manchester United coach Jose Mourinho, Javier Mascherano, Alex Sanchez and 2018 World Cup Golden Ball winner Luka Modric.
It is suspected that tax issues featured among the reasons why Ronaldo left Spain and has never hidden his anger after authorities took him to court over tax, and just one week after departure to Italy he has wiped his debt with the treasury.
He is also understood to have put his £4.8m Madrid mansion in the exclusive ‘La Finca’ neighbourhood on the market and is seriously contemplating closing all his business interests in the Spanish capital.
It is a dramatic cutting of ties that could include abandoning a hotel project in the city’s emblematic avenue ‘Gran Via’.
Ronaldo, in a joint venture with Portuguese company Pestana, had gained a building license earlier this year to convert one of Gran Via’s historic buildings into a 160-room luxury hotel with roof-top bar but Portuguese media now say that project could be shelved.
Ronaldo has always protested his innocence against claims he willfully deceived the Spanish treasury by not declaring image-rights earnings between 2011 and 2014.
