Carlo Ancelotti Sentenced To One Year In Person For Tax Fraud In Spain

A Spanish court has handed football manager Carlo Ancelotti a one-year prison sentence for tax fraud, but he won’t be going to jail.

The case stems from 2014, during Carlo Ancelotti’s first stint as manager of Spanish club, Real Madrid.

Prosecutors claimed the 66-year-old coach used shell companies to hide some of his income, particularly earnings from image rights, to avoid paying taxes.

They accused him of failing to declare over one million euros and initially pushed for a sentence of nearly five years.

Ancelotti, who currently manages Brazil’s national team, denied any intentional wrongdoing.

During his trial in April, he said he didn’t realize that collecting part of his salary through image rights would reduce his tax burden or violate Spanish tax laws.

On Wednesday, the Madrid court ruled that Ancelotti had committed “an offence against the treasury… to the punishment of one year in prison” and a fine of €386,361 (about $452,000).

Ancelotti showed a “conscious desire to evade the payment of taxes on the income obtained from the exploitation of his image rights, through artificial mechanisms.

“The actions are blatantly fraudulent and the structures used do not conform to a real economic logic. The deliberate concealment of income through opaque structures and entities in tax havens proves a fraudulent intent,” the court wrote in a ruling.

However, since the sentence is under two years and Ancelotti has no previous criminal record, he won’t serve time behind bars, a common outcome in Spain for first-time offenders.

The court’s written decision accused Ancelotti of deliberately using fake business structures in tax havens to hide income and avoid taxes.

It stated that his actions were clearly fraudulent and lacked any legitimate economic basis.

Ancelotti was cleared of fraud for the 2015 tax year, as the court couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was still a tax resident in Spain at that time.

The 66-year-old now joins several other football legends who have faced legal trouble over taxes in Spain.

Former Real Madrid manager José Mourinho, as well as stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, all received suspended prison sentences in recent years for similar offenses.

Carlo Ancelotti has had a decorated career in football, winning five Champions League titles as a manager more than anyone else, and earning two European Cups as a player with AC Milan.

He left Real Madrid at the end of last season after a rare year without silverware and took over as Brazil’s national team coach.

KanyiDaily recalls that in 2019,  Italian Football Club Napoli sacked Carlo Ancelotti few hours after successfully securing a spot in Round 16 of Champions league.