Durhamfootman wrote:but didn't he also get into trouble for avoiding tax (like everyone who plays in Spain), so maybe he just gave away the Spanish govt's money instead of his own
Behind the sensationalist press headlines of footballers being dragged into court for tax evasion, there was a heavily political agenda in play in Spain at the time (these court cases took place when I lived there- well not Ronaldo, but the Barca ones and Alonso), and a lot of nuance can be added to the situation. The Spanish economy boomed in the 2000's, and they passed a law which not only legalised, but specifically encouraged, foreign rich people to evade tax in certain ways on their worldwide income. Then the 2009 Financial crash hit Spain horrendously, the policy became hugely political and unpopular,so the government were forced to go as hard as possible at tax avoidance schemes that they had previously created. Such was the outcry and insistence from the public, one could certainly make the case that there was no option they were going to get off without some debt being paid back to society.
I cant remember the exact details/figures, but a foreign person could move to Spain and pay the lowest tax rate (25% by memory, for a max 5 years) by declaring all their worldwide earnings in their Spanish tax return. The idea would be that while they got a huge tax break on their domestic earnings, Spain would then get 25% of a very rich persons worldwide earnings too. The Spanish government helped these people set up the legal shell companies that masked their worldwide earnings coming from Spain to facilitate that, to avoid double taxation.
They then went after the same people for doing what they legalised, arguing a completely opposite legal situation. The law change then argued that every single penny these players earned could be proved to have been generated in Spain, which imo, was totally legally wrong and was just a heavy-handed government fudging the trials to ensure the people got their pound of flesh.
Take Messi for instance. He signed a contract with a Canadian company in Canada to be on the cover of FIFA's game. 99% of the game sales were outside Spain, the work undertook was outside Spain. He was subsequently nearly jailed for not paying tax on the money received, because it was argued 100% of that money was generated in Spain.
Same with the others. In one case, one player got paid to market clothing that wasnt even sold in Spain, and still got busted for tax evasion for not paying his tax on the earnings to Spain, even though the full amount was declared in a bank account in the country of question, and tax paid on it.
I have no doubt there may have been some foul play, but most of it was extremely harsh