Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has been accused of tax fraud totalling €3.3 million (£2.9m) relating to his time at Real Madrid.
The Spanish prosecutor’s office announced on Tuesday that it has filed a complaint in a Madrid court against the Portuguese regarding tax irregularities. It will now be up to a judge to decide whether to take the matter to court.
In a statement released Madrid’s regional state prosecutor accused Mourinho of evading tax totalling €3.3m from his 2011 and 2012 declarations — €1.61m in 2011 and €1.69m in 2012 — while on the books of Real Madrid.
Mourinho, 54, who left Madrid in 2013, faces two counts of tax fraud.
The prosecutor’s office said Mourinho sold his image rights to Koper Services S. A, based in the Virgin Islands, before September 2004 and that he knowingly used a “business structure” involving several companies to hide his income from his image rights.
“All these companies’ structures were used by the accused with the object of making physically opaque his image rights earnings,” the state prosecutor’s report read.
The accusation against Mourinho comes a week after the Madrid-based prosecutor’s office accused Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo of defrauding Spain’s tax office of €14.7m.
Ronaldo is due to appear in court on July 31.
When media speculation emerged in December that Mourinho was being investigated by Spain’s Tax Office over unpaid taxes, the former Porto, Chelsea and Inter Milan boss denied any wrongdoing and said he “has nothing to hide.”
Gestifute, a firm representing Mourinho and Ronaldo, also denied designing ways to help clients evade millions in taxes.
Ronaldo and Mourinho are the latest among a number of prominent football stars to face accusations of tax evasion in Spain.
Barcelona’s Lionel Messi was convicted of tax fraud last year and given a 21-month prison sentence, although under Spanish law he did not have to spend time behind bars.
