This Wednesday, April 2, the Italian technician is to be tried in Spain for tax fraud.
Like many other personalities before him, Carlo Ancelotti will be tried this Wednesday, April 2 for tax fraud. The 65-year-old Italian coach is accused of having defrauded the Spanish public treasury of more than a million euros in 2014 and 2015, during his first visit to the head of Real Madrid (2013-2015), where he returned in 2021. Two days of trial is planned, not enough to worry the coach.
“I have confidence in the law and justice, I am not worried. Of course it bothers me a little that I consider that I have fraud, but I will go and deposit with hope,” he explained in front of the press a few days ago.
In detail, the Italian technician told the tax authorities his income as a Real coach in 2014 and 2015, but not those from image rights or other sources of income, notably real estate. The Public Prosecutor’s Office estimated at 1.24 million euros in 2014 and 2.96 million euros in 2015 the income that the Italian coach derived from the sale of his image rights, to which the dispute bears.
For the prosecution, the breaches are voluntary because Carlo Ancelotti “used a complex and confusing network of trusts and screens to channel the perception of image rights”. Mr. Ancelotti thus “simulated the transfer of his image rights to entities without real activity” domiciled outside Spain, in order to maintain “the opacity vis-à-vis the Spanish public treasury”, said the prosecution.
During the requisitions, the prosecution claimed up to four years and nine months in prison. A very heavy penalty which has little chance of being retained. As a reminder, the star of FC Barcelona Lionel Messi had been sentenced in 2016 to 21 months in prison for having defrauded the public treasury by 4.1 million euros. The Argentinian had not had to serve his prison sentence, as is the case in Spain for the sanctions less than two years of incarceration, this should therefore be the case for Ancelotti.