Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti was ordered to serve four years and nine months in prison by Spanish authorities on Wednesday due to his failure to report his income to the tax office.
The 64-year-old Italian is charged by the Madrid state prosecutor’s office with costing Spain’s coffers over one million euros in unreported image rights profits in 2014 and 2015.
“Although he himself declared himself to be a tax resident in Spain and indicated that his home was in Madrid, he only declared in his tax returns the personal remuneration received from Real Madrid,” the tax office said in a statement.
It claimed that Ancelotti had established a “complex” and “confusing” network of shell corporations to conceal his additional income from his image rights.
Prosecutors also alleged the Real Madrid coach “simulated” the transfer of his image rights to entities “without any real activity” based outside of Spain to maintain “opacity vis-a-vis” the Spanish treasury.
Regarded as one of the greatest coaches of all time, Ancelotti was ordered by a Spanish court in July to stand trial on the matter; however, a date has not yet been set.
