Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo aren’t the only huge names of Spanish football who have fallen foul of the Spanish tax authorities, with a number of Real Madrid and Barcelona’s biggest stars summoned to court in recent years.
If you follow La Liga, you’ll no doubt be used to a recurring theme – some of the league’s most recognisable faces being summoned to court, and often handed mammoth penalties or even jail sentences, having been deemed not to have paid their fair share in taxes.
Here are nine huge names who have had their battles with the Spanish taxman.
Carlo Ancelotti
The latest case.
Real Madrid’s all-time most decorated manager has just been given a one-year prison sentence and a fine of almost €400,000 (£345,000) after a Spanish court found him guilty of tax fraud.
Don Carlo appeared in court in April, standing trial on charges of defrauding the Spanish tax office of over €1million in undeclared image rights earnings during his first stint as Los Blancos boss in 2014 and 2015. It’s alleged he used shell companies based in the Virgin Islands to hide his
Prosecutors originally sought a jail term of four years and nine months.
As is customary in Spain, Ancelotti will not serve jail time because the sentence is less than two years and he has no criminal record.
Jose Mourinho
Ancelotti’s predecessor also found himself in hot water from his tax affairs during his time in the Spanish capital.
In February 2019, Mourinho accepted to a suspended one-year prison sentence, exhanging it for a fine of €182,500 – on top of a further €2million.
He was accused of owing €3.3million to the Spanish taxman from his time as Los Blancos boss, having been found guilty of creating offshore companies to manage his image rights and conceal earnings.
Lionel Messi
Arguably the most famous tax case in history, Messi and his father Jorge were found guilty of defrauding Spain of €4.1million between 2007 and 2009.
They were found guilty of using tax havens in Belize and Uruguay to hide their image rights earnings.
In August 2013, they made a voluntary €5million “corrective payment”, equal to the alleged unpaid tax (plus interest).
The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner was also handed a 21-month prison sentence, while his dad was given a 15-month sentence.
Messi’s sentence was later changed to a fine by the Spanish courts after Messi appealed. He paid a further €252,000, equal to €400 for each day of the original sentence.
Jorge Messi’s prison sentence was replaced with a €180,000 fine.
Cristiano Ronaldo
Anything Messi can do…
Never to be outdone by his eternal rival, Ronaldo accepted a ginormous €18.8million fine in January 2019 after reaching a deal with a court in Madrid.
It included a suspended 23-month jail sentence.
Returning to the Spanish capital six months after his big-money transfer to Juventus, Ronaldo’s court appearance only lasted minutes after he accepted the deal offered by the prosecutors.
It was a familiar tale; prosecutors said he avoided tax – “a voluntary and conscious breach of his fiscal obligations in Spain” – on his lucrative image rights after proceeds were allegedly funnelled through low-tax companies overseas.
Neymar
Earlier this year, a Brazilian judge threw out a tax evasion case relating to Neymar’s image rights during his teenage years at Santos.
But that’s only on top of the major headache the 33-year-old has faced a major headache relating to tax.
“We are not thinking of leaving Spain but we have a problem. We’ve never experienced such major tax issues,” Neymar’s father told a Spanish radio station back in 2015.
“I don’t want to use the word persecution, but if the working environment here is not good, we won’t be able to remain in Spain and will have to leave the country.”
Sure enough, Neymar left a couple of years later. But back in 2020, an official document stated that he owed more in unpaid tax (an eye-watering €34.6million) than any other individual on the Spanish authorities’ blacklist.
Luka Modric
Surely at this point there’s enough precedent now for any big-name footballer not to try and conceal any earnings related to image rights. The Spanish authorities are some kind of suited, pecuniary version of Liam Neeson in taken.
Modric was given a suspended eight-month prison sentence and a fine of just over €348,000 back in 2018.
The 2018 Ballon d’Or winner was found guilty of defrauding the treasury of over €870,000 by using a company based in Luxembourg.
READ: Remembering when Luka Modric was voted La Liga’s worst signing
Alexis Sanchez
The Chilean’s agent Fernando Felivich came out swinging after his client accepted a prison sentence for tax fraud back in 2018, by which point he’d moved to Manchester United.
“Prosecutors and the tax office have put more than 30 players in the same situation, accusing them of the same crimes and threatening them with effective prison sentences,” Felicevich said in a statement.
“Almost the entire squad at Real Madrid and FC Barcelona have been put in this situation, as the clubs have used a means of paying tax that was accepted by the tax office in the past.
“The supposed crimes are the use of contracts that have been used for a long time by infinite numbers of players, in agreement and coordination with the most prestigious clubs in Spain and using a legitimate method of taxation that was tacitly and expressly accepted by inland revenue in the past.”
Samuel Eto'o
The former Cameroon international was handed a 22-month suspended prison sentence by a Spanish court after he admitted tax fraud of €3.8million, related to – you guessed it, image rights – during his Barcelona pomp.
“I admit the facts and I am going to pay what I’m due, but let it be known that I was just a child then and that I always did what my former agent Jose Maria Mesalles, who I considered like a father, asked me to do at that time,” Eto’o told a Barcelona court in June 2022.
Xabi Alonso
If any lawyers are reading this, let’s make this one clear off the bat – Alonso was cleared of three counts of tax fraud in a Madrid court back in 2019.
But he was forced to undergo the lengthy legal process after being accused of defrauding the Spanish tax office of €2mllion during his playing days with Real Madrid (2010 to 2012).
As this list demonstrates, most high-profile figures accepted a plea bargain but Alonso refused and always maintained his innocence.
“I do not plan any plea bargain,” Alonso told reporters outside the court.
“Once I arrived here by conviction and by principles, it does not occur to me to agree. It is very clear to me, if it were not so, I would have already left it.”
And he was vindicated when acquitted. Fair play.
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