Cristiano Ronaldo sentenced to 24-months of jail in tax evasion case

Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo will pay 3.2 million euros ($3.7m) and has been sentenced to 24 months of imprisonment after settling a tax evasion case with the Spanish authorities on Friday.

Ronaldo though is unlikely to serve the two-year jail term as under the Spanish Law, sentences up to 24-months of imprisonment are not implemented for first-time offenders, in non-violent crimes.

The 33-year-old during his time at the Spanish club, Real Madrid, was accused of making a fraud of 5.7 million euros in taxes. He had allegedly used shell companies based in the British Virgin Islands and Ireland to avoid the heavy taxes, he had to pay otherwise.

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In addition, the prosecutors accused that Ronaldo declared only 11.5 million euros ($13.6m) of revenue earned in Spain from 2011-2014, when his actual earnings in the country was close to 43 million euros.

They also alleged that the five-time Ballon d’Or did not include the 28.4 million euros ($33.6m) he earned from selling his image rights to a Spanish company for the 2015-2020 period.

Ronaldo had earlier refused such accusations claiming that he always filed his income tax returns on time. But was proved guilty by a Spanish court after the tax authorities had sought for an investigation. The forward just last week signed for Italian champions Juventus, in a record Serie-A deal.

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This however is not the first time, a footballer in Spain has been accused in a tax-fraud case. Ronaldo’s biggest rival Lionel Messi in 2016,  had to pay two-million euro as fine and was also sentenced to 21-month of imprisonment.

Former Germany international Mesut Ozil and Croatia captain Luka Modric also have cases of tax-fraud running against them.