Ancelotti Faces Four Years In Prison Over Fraud Charge

Real Madrid head coach, Carlo Ancelotti, could reportedly face over four years in prison after prosecuters in Madrid charged the Italian with having defrauded the Treasury to the tune of over €1million.

Quoting reports in Spain, Daily Mail stated that Ancelotti is said to have not paid the necessary tax during his first stint managing Madrid between 2013 and 2015, despite being registered as a resident in Spain for tax purposes.

Ancelotti allegedly declared his earnings from his Real Madrid salary, but is claimed to have omitted money earnt from his image rights, instead transferring the sum to an entity named Vapia Limited.

He has been charged with two crimes against Spain’s Public Treasury by the Provincial Prosecutor’s Officer in Madrid, and as per Marca, a prison sentence of four years and nine months has been requested should Ancelotti be found guilty.

The total sum in question stems from the fiscal years 2014 and 2015, with the first year seeing Ancelotti fail to declare €39,575 and the second, €675,718.

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The prosecutors’ official statement with the announcement of the charges alleges that the 64-year-old set up a ‘complex’ and ‘confusing’ network of trusts and companies that allowed the money earnt from his image rights to be domiciled outside of Spain.

This, the prosecutors stated saw Ancelotti ‘pursuing opacity in the face of the Spanish Public Treasury and the concealment of the real beneficiary of his income from his image rights, so that neither he himself, nor any of the said companies, would have to pay taxes on the large amounts received in Spain or outside our country’.

According to prosecutors, Ancelotti transferred his image rights to Vapia Limited for a period of ten years for £21m (€25m) in July 2013, shortly signing after his first three-year contract with Real Madrid.