MADRID.- The coach of real Madrid, Carlo Ancelottiwill be tried on Wednesday and Thursday in the capital of Spain for allegedly evading more than one million euros in 2014 and 2015, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid reported Friday.
A spokesman for this court explained that the Italian coach will have to be present at this trial, in which the Prosecutor’s Office requests for him a penalty of four years and nine months in jail.
The facts of which Ancelotti, 65, would have occurred in his first stage as coach of Real Madrid (2013-2015), which he returned in 2021.
The Madrid Prosecutor’s Office charges two crimes against the Public Treasury for allegedly disappointed more than one million euros (1.1 million dollars) in the 2014 and 2015 years by avoiding declaring their income from image rights.
At a press conference this Friday prior to Saturday’s League match against Leganés, Ancelotti said he wanted to declare.
“I am not worried. It bothers me that they say that I have disappointed, but I will declare with illusion,” he explained.
The one who was a player of AC Milan, with whom he won two European drinks, is the coach who has conquered the most Champions League, 5, three of them with Real Madrid.
Voluntary omissions
According to the Spanish fiscal administration, Ancelotti declared his income as coach of Real Madrid in 2014 and 2015, but not those from image rights and other sources, such as some real estate properties.
“Although he himself affirmed his status as a resident in Spain for fiscal purposes and that he reflected that his home was in Madrid, he only recorded in his income statements the personal work remuneration of Real Madrid,” the Prosecutor’s Office explained.
The revenue from image rights were, according to the Public Ministry, of 1.2 million euros in 2014 (1.3 million dollars) and 2.9 million (3 million dollars) in 2015.
According to a judicial document consulted by AFP, Ancelotti recognized the facts during the investigation.
For the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the omissions of Ancelotti in their tax statements were voluntary, since the Italian coach “went to a ‘complex’ and ‘confusing’ network of trusts and interposed companies to channel the collection of image rights.”
In this way “he simulated” the assignment of his rights to entities “lacking real activity” domiciled outside Spain, “thus pursuing the opacity for the Spanish Public Treasury,” adds the statement, citing the terms used by the Prosecutor’s Office in its brief.
In the wake of Messi and Ronaldo
Ancelotti, according to the Public Ministry, agreed “parallel” to his signature as coach of Real Madrid, a private contract with the club for which he gave him 50% of his image rights.
The other 50% was possessed by a “unnamed” and “not determined” society that “acted in the name and representation of the Italian coach,” says the same source.
Ancelotti is not the first ball star that has problems with the Spanish treasury.
Also accused of fiscal fraud, the then Astros of FC Barcelona, Lionel Messi, and Real Madrid, Cristiano Ronaldo, were sentenced to millionaire fines and sentences of 21 and 24 months in prison respectively, which were replaced by the payment of two economic sanctions.
In Spain, however, sentences less than two years old without criminal history do not usually lead to prison.
