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Prosecutors are seeking a four years and nine month jail sentence for the 65-year-old Italian, accusing him of failing to pay more than one million euros ($1.1 million) due to undeclared earnings.
Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti (Image: AP)
Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti’s tax fraud trial wrapped up Thursday in Spain, with public prosecutors maintaining their demand he be jailed for four years and nine months for allegedly hiding income from the tax office.
Ancelotti denied having intentionally committed tax fraud when he took the stand on Wednesday on the opening day of the trial at the High Court of Justice in Madrid, saying he “never considered committing fraud”.
Prosecutors are seeking jail for the 65-year-old Italian, accusing him of failing to pay more than one million euros ($1.1 million) due to undeclared earnings from image rights in 2014 and 2015 during his first spell at the club.
They argue Ancelotti had only reported the salary he was paid by the club and had omitted income from his image rights in his tax returns during this period.
Prosecutors allege he set up a “confusing” and “complex” system of shell companies to hide his extra earnings during this time from his image rights and other sources such as real estate.
Ancelotti told the High Court of Justice in Madrid that this payment system had been proposed to him by Real Madrid, and that “all the players do it” as did another former coach, Jose Mourinho.
“When the club suggests it to me, I put Real Madrid in touch with my advisor. I didn’t deal with it because I had never been paid that way,” he said.
“I never realised that something wasn’t right,” he added, saying he “never considered committing fraud”.
Ancelotti told the court he never realised that the company he had set up to transfer these rights to him allowed him to pay less tax.
“At that time, all the players and coaches were doing it that way, it seemed like the right thing to do,” he said.
Ancelotti took over at Real Madrid in 2013, leaving in May 2015, before being appointed by Bayern Munich the following year. He later managed Napoli and Everton before returning to Real Madrid in 2021.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)
