A court in Spain has handed former Real Madrid head coach, Carlo Ancelotti a prison sentence for tax fraud.
Former Real Madrid manager and current head coach of the Brazilian national football team, Carlo Ancelotti has been handed a one-year prison sentence by a court in Madrid over tax fraud related to his time in Spain.
According to reports the charges emerged from his first season with Real Madrid in 2014, during which he reportedly failed to declare over €386,000 in earnings from image rights.
While prosecutors had initially sought a prison term of nearly five years, the final verdict resulted in a significantly lighter sentence.
Ancelotti was also fined €386,361 and prohibited from receiving public subsidies or tax benefits for a period of three years.
However, under Spanish law, sentences of less than two years for first-time, non-violent offenders are typically suspended, meaning Ancelotti is unlikely to serve jail time.
The court found that the 66-year-old Italian coach used complex offshore financial structures to obscure income, allegedly to avoid taxation.
Ancelotti, who took over as Brazil’s head coach earlier this year, has maintained that he did not intentionally commit fraud, insisting his financial affairs were managed by Real Madrid’s advisors and that similar practices were commonplace in the football world at the time.
While Ancelotti was convicted for the 2014 fiscal year, he was cleared of similar charges for 2015 due to a lack of sufficient evidence.
The court also acknowledged that he fully repaid the outstanding tax amount by late 2021 a factor many attributed reduced the initial penalty from 5 years to 1 year.
This conviction is the latest development in a broader crackdown by Spanish authorities targeting tax evasion in professional football predominantly the La Liga.
