⚖️ Cristiano Ronaldo agrees €18.8M Spain tax fine, El Mundo says

Scoreboard first. According to The Independent, which cited Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Cristiano Ronaldo agreed a two-year suspended jail sentence and an €18.8M fine (£16.4M) over four tax offences. The report appeared on 15 June 2018, while he was with Portugal at the World Cup in Russia.

The Independent said the report claims Ronaldo is reported to have pleaded guilty and agreed to pay back €5.7M, plus additional fines and interest. That is a reported deal, not a published court order. Keep that on the board.

What Spain said he did

The Guardian reported on 31 July 2017 that Ronaldo was under investigation over allegations that from 2011 to 2014 he defrauded the Spanish treasury of €14.7M. It is alleged that he concealed income from the sale of image rights through a financial structure that sent the money via Ireland to a tax haven in the British Virgin Islands.

The Guardian said anti-corruption judges claim he used three shell companies to hide part of his income.

What he said back

Ronaldo was questioned for 90 minutes by judge Mónica Ferrer Gómez, The Guardian reported, in a preliminary hearing held in camera. He left without speaking to the 200 journalists outside. His media representative, Iñaki Torres, told them Ronaldo had already gone home.

His lawyers' line, per The Guardian: he "didn't break any laws, all he did was follow criteria that the tax inspectors don't like." Not fraud, they insisted, but a difference of opinion.

"I always paid my taxes, always. In England and In Spain."

Cristiano Ronaldo to the judge, as reported by AS USA citing SER, 4 August 2017

Per the same AS USA report, Ronaldo told the court he trusted his advisors. "When my advisors tell me, 'Cris, it's okay' then I believe them," he said. Diário de Notícias, reporting Spanish newspapers, also quoted him saying he had paid more than he owed in 2014, according to specialists.

The arithmetic

The Independent said Ronaldo was accused of evading €14.7M. It also said he agreed to pay back €5.7M of the alleged evaded sum, plus fines and interest, inside an €18.8M package. The report does not break that total down, so the split is unknown here.

The sentence itself is the mild part. The Independent noted that under Spanish law a sentence of two years or less for a first offence can be served on probation. Ronaldo would serve no jail time unless he reoffended in that period.

There is a precedent in the same league. The Guardian noted Lionel Messi was found guilty of tax fraud of €4.1M, fined €2M and sentenced to 21 months in prison, cut to 15 months on appeal.

Where it stood

Per The Independent, the sanction only needed signing off by the new director of the Spanish Tax Agency, which would close all criminal and administrative proceedings. The case with the Public Prosecutor's office would still need to be resolved. The documents read do not show whether that sign-off happened, or on what date a court recorded the sentence. That is the part MrMuscles can't put on the scoreboard.