Cristiano Ronaldo Tells Spanish Judge He ‘Never Tried to Avoid Taxes’
MADRID — Cristiano Ronaldo told a Spanish judge on Monday that he had “never tried to avoid taxes.”
Ronaldo, the star Real Madrid
forward who is from Portugal, was questioned to determine whether he
committed tax fraud amounting to almost 15 million euros. Ronaldo spent
more than 90 minutes answering the questions of the investigating judge,
Mónica Gómez.
According
to a statement in Spanish released by his public relations firm, the
32-year-old Ronaldo told the judge: “I have never hidden anything, and
never tried to avoid taxes.”
Judge
Gómez took Ronaldo’s testimony as part of an investigation to determine
if there are grounds to charge him. The session, at Pozuelo de Alarcón
Court No. 1 on the outskirts of Madrid, was closed to the public because
it was part of a continuing investigation.
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In
June, a state prosecutor accused Ronaldo of four counts of tax fraud
from 2011 to 2014 worth 14.7 million euros ($16.5 million). Ronaldo was
accused of having used shell companies outside Spain to hide income made
from image rights. The accusation does not involve his salary from Real
Madrid.
Ronaldo denies any wrongdoing.
“Spain’s
tax office knows all the details about my sources of income because we
have reported them,” Ronaldo told the judge, according to his statement.
“I always file my tax returns because I think that we should all file
and pay our taxes.
“Those
who know me know that I tell my consultants that they must have
everything in order and paid up to date because I don’t want trouble.”
Before
and after his court appearance, Ronaldo used an alternative entrance to
avoid a swarm of more than a hundred journalists from Spain and abroad
gathered near the main door to the court.
Court
officials had said that either Ronaldo or his lawyer would speak to the
media after he saw the judge, but instead the player’s spokesman, Inaki
Torres, announced in front of the courthouse that Ronaldo “was on his
way home.”
The
prosecutor said in June that Ronaldo used what was deemed a shell
company in the Virgin Islands to “create a screen in order to hide his
total income from Spain’s tax office.”
The inquiry into Ronaldo’s financial arrangements is among recent high-profile tax cases involving soccer’s top names in Spain.
Last
year, Barcelona forward Lionel Messi and his father, Jorge Horacio
Messi, were found guilty on three counts of defrauding tax authorities
of 4.1 million euros ($4.6 million) from income made from image rights.
They have both paid additional fines in exchange for their 21-month jail
sentences to be suspended.
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