The numbers involved in the tax charges brought against Cristiano Ronaldo are surprisingly high -- especially when compared with Lionel Messi, who was given a suspended 21-month prison sentence after being found guilty of tax evasion totalling 4.1 million euros on his image rights between 2007 and 2009.
Spanish prosecutors brought the charges against Ronaldo on Tuesday following allegations from the tax office the Real Madrid star defrauded authorities a total of 14,768,897 euros on image rights between 2011 and 2014.
These are the full details:
Accusation
Tax fraud of 14.7 million euros
Breakdown by year
2011: 1.39 million euros
2012: 1.66 million euros
2013: 3.2 million euros
2014: € 8.5 million
Possible sentence
Penalty of 1 to 5 years in prison. All amounts exceed 120,000 euros per year, which makes tax fraud a criminal offense.
2014 Declaration
Ronaldo declared an income of 11.5 million when actual income obtained was 43 million
Image rights
Ronaldo did not voluntarily include income of €28.4 million via image rights