Cristiano Ronaldo appears in Spanish court to answer questions on tax evasion
By Ben Sundock
It has been nearly six weeks since news broke that Cristiano Ronaldo was to appear in a Spanish court to address allegations of tax evasion. The Real Madrid star returned to Madrid today to respond to the allegations. Here’s everything you need to know about what happened today.
Cristiano Ronaldo has been the center of attention in Spain this summer for all the wrong reasons. The 32-year-old winger has been in the news all summer after it was first reported that he owed the Spanish government €14.7 million in taxes.
Then came the rumors that CR7 wanted to leave Real Madrid after these allegations, saying he was tired of being “harassed” by several Spanish media outlets. While it appears that Cristiano has changed his mind and wishes to stay at the club, he still will have to answer to these allegations.
Earlier today, Ronaldo spent an hour and a half in the Court of First Instance and Instruction No. 1 in Pozuelo de Alarcon, Madrid court answering questions about these rumors and claims. According to his lawyer, Cristiano “has never hidden anything” and told his advisors to always pay the correct amount in taxes.
Ronaldo was supposed to address the media gathered outside the courthouse following the questioning, but left out of the back door and sent one of his attornies from the Gestifute agency out to read his prepared statement.
"“The Spanish tax service [Hacienda] knows the detail of all my income because we have given it to them. I have never hidden anything, nor did have I ever had the intention of evading taxes.”“I always do my tax declaration in a voluntary manner, as I think that we must all declare and pay taxes according to our income. Those who know me know that this is what I ask from my advisors — that they keep everything up to date, and correctly paid, as I do not want any problems.”“When I signed for Real Madrid, I did not create a special structure to manage my image rights, I just kept the way they were managed when I was in England,” he said. “The lawyers who were recommended to me by Manchester United created it in 2004, long before I thought of coming to live in Spain. The structure was normal in England, accepted by the English tax authority who ratified it as legal.”“Since 2015 Cristiano Ronaldo has ceded his image rights to a third party, paying independently the taxes due,” it said. “He currently pays his taxes in Spain, and is one of the biggest individual contributors in the whole country.”"
The main issue that the Spanish tax service Hacienda is considered about is Ronaldo out sourcing his image rights to an offshore group between 2011 and 2014, where he earned the money in Spain, but paid his taxes to a non-Spanish affiliated country or group (the details are a little unclear).
Reports say that Ronaldo entered the courtroom relaxed, but throughout the course of the 90-minute questioning, the Portuguese started to grow impatient and rather angry, telling Judge Monica Gomez Ferrer the above quote before the end of the session.
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It’s pretty clear that Cristiano was pretty frustrated with the proceedings and this could’ve contributed to him not wanting to read his statement to the media following the 90-minute time in court.
“Now is the moment to let justice do its work,” the statement went on to say. “I believe in justice and I hope that, also in this case, there is a just decision. And with the goal of avoiding any unnecessary pressures or contributing to any kind of ‘parallel justice,’ I have decided that I will not make any more comments about this issue until the decision is made.”
Going forward, Judge Gomez Ferrer will decide based on what Ronaldo said whether to move forward with a full trial if she feels there is enough evidence to prove that Ronaldo did evade paying his taxes.
If a trial is decided and Ronaldo is found guilty of not paying the Spanish government taxes for three years, he could owe up to €50 million to Spain.
Ronaldo is set to rejoin the Real Madrid squad upon their return to Europe on Saturday to begin preparing for their first competitive match against Manchester United in Macedonia on the 8th of August.
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