Cristiano Ronaldo has officially been slapped with a €18.8m (R290m) fine and handed a suspended two-year prison sentence from the Spanish Treasury as part of a tax fraud case.
According to Spanish publication Marca, Ronaldo has been found guilty of committing four years of tax fraud which reached a total of €14,768,897.
While the representatives of the five-time Ballon d’Or winner reiterated his innocence of the allegations, they have now accepted the hefty fine and the two-year prison sentence.
The captain of the Portugal national team officially admitted the four charges of fraud and agreed to the abovementioned settlement, after initially seeing a £12.9m (R220m) offer rejected by the Spanish authorities last year.
However, Ronaldo won’t be facing any time behind bars as Spanish tax law allows first-time offenders with no previous criminal record to have a suspended sentence, bearing the misdemeanour is not repeated.
Reports in Spain have been rife that the case was a huge driving factor behind his recent exit from Real Madrid.
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