Cristiano Ronaldo will accept guilt on four counts of tax fraud in a Spanish court and a two-year suspended prison sentence.
The Juventus star has been found guilty of defrauding the Spanish state of €14.7m in relation to image rights and has already repaid €13.4m of that sum.
However, the law stipulates he must appear in front of court to formalise the charges and indeed a legal negotiation to avoid this appearance by paying €375k has been rejected.
According to reports in Spain, between 2011 and 2014 Ronaldo committed four years’ worth of tax fraud, comprising of four individual crimes of which the total amount reached €14,768,897.
The imposition of a two-year prison term means he will not serve any time in jail, due to his being a first offence and anything under two years and one day in Spain means no custodial sentence is applied.
Nonetheless, the Treasury wants to maintain the two-year sentence to prevent any re-offending, with any further wrongdoings having to be served as it would be a second offence.
Ronaldo left Madrid to join Italian champions Juventus this summer in a deal worth a reported €100m.
