Ronaldo pleads guilty to tax evasion, accepts €18.8m deal with court

Juventus forward, Cristiano Ronaldo has pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges in Spain and has accepted to pay a €18.8m fine as agreed with a court in Madrid.

The deal, agreed in advance, includes a 23-month jail sentence. But in Spain, convicts do not usually do time for sentences under two years.

Hence, it is highly unlikely the Portuguese will face any time behind bars, as and the non-violent nature of his offence means he will probably serve it on probation.

The court appearance on Tuesday lasted for few minutes as Ronaldo accepted the deal offered by the prosecutors.

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The 33-year-old was accused of avoiding paying tax in Spain between 2010 and 2014, when he was playing for Real Madrid and based in the Spanish capital.

In 2017, when the allegations first emerged, prosecutors said it was a “voluntary and conscious breach of his fiscal obligations in Spain”

But Ronaldo’s lawyers said it is all down to a misunderstanding over what was and was not required under Spanish law, and deny any deliberate attempt to evade tax.

The deal, struck in June last year, had to be agreed with Spain’s tax authorities.

Meanwhile, Ronaldo is not the only high-profile player to be accused of tax evasion by Spain authorities. Xabi Alonso, for instance, was also in court on Tuesday.

 

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