Spain's prosecutor seeks 5-year jail for Xavi Alonso on tax fraud

Xabi Alonso while playing for Real Madrid, before moving to Bayern Munich. [Photo: Courtesy]

Spain’s prosecutor said on Wednesday it was seeking a five-year jail sentence and a fine of Kshs 495 Million (4 million euros or £3.5 million) for former soccer player Xabi Alonso over accusations of tax fraud.

The prosecutor said in a statement Alonso is accused of defrauding the Spanish state some 2 million euros between 2010 and 2012.

The prosecutor called for the same sentence to be applied to Alonso’s financial advisor Ivan Zaldua Azcuenaga and the administrator of consultancy shell company, Ignasi Maestre Casanova.

The former Real Madrid star is not the first player to be at logger heads with the Spanish taxman. His comes after a string of tax evasion cases that plagued players most of them drawn from giant clubs Real Madrid and Barcelona.

His former teammate and the Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo once faced the charges in which he was accused of understating his income hence consequently denying the taxman a whopping Kshs 1.64 Billion ($ 16.4M) within the period spanning from 2011 to 2014.

Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar and co. have been tried

Ronaldo was whisked to court in full glare of hundreds of journalists in July 2017, and has since been protected by “Beckam’s Law.” This is a law that allows foreign players to acquire Spanish citizenship in order to reduce the taxation margin.

Barcelona’s Lionel Messi also got into hot water after tax evasion case surfaced against him last year. Messi was alleged to have defrauded the Spanish taxman Kshs 220M ($ 2.2M) to which he risked being jailed.

Other players who have had similar taxation cases include Real Madrid Marcelo, Luka Modrid, and former stars Fabio Coentrao and Raul Gonzalez.

In Barcelona camp, Argentine defender Javier Mascherano and Neymar also had similar problems with the Spanish revenue authority.