The Supreme Court is studying this Wednesday the appeal of the State Attorney’s Office against the sentence that confirmed the second acquittal of the former footballer and current coach of Bayer Leverkusen, Xabi Alonso, in the case in which he was accused of defrauding the Treasury of almost two million euros between 2010 and 2012.
The Criminal Chamber meets behind closed doors to deliberate and resolve the appeal presented by the State Attorney’s Office against the ruling of the Superior Court of Justice (TSJ) of Madrid, which this summer ratified the second acquittal of the former soccer player.
The judicial journey of the Xabi Alonso case has been long: the Provincial Court of Madrid acquitted him, but the TSJ of Madrid ordered a repeat of the trial; The Court acquitted him again and, after appealing again by the Prosecutor’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office, the Superior Court ratified the acquittal.
The State Attorney’s Office appealed again, this time before the Supreme Court, which will issue the final ruling in the case.
Alonso, who began his career at Real Sociedad and later played for Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, was a tax resident in Spain and paid personal income tax in the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, but did not declare the income obtained. for the exploitation of his image rights because he had transferred his exploitation to a company based in Madeira (Portugal).
In the last acquittal ruling of the TSJ, last summer, the magistrates maintained that the facts prosecuted may fit into the figure of legal fraud, but there is no simulation, because the taxable event recorded – the exploitation of image rights by transfer of its headline – really took place and reality was not falsified.
Alonso, according to the court, acted “in the belief that this procedure was in accordance with the law.” This was also ruled by the Provincial Court, which noted that “if the transfer of the player’s rights to Kardzali (the Madeira company) was real and this entity carried out an active intervention in its exploitation, the accusatory claims decline.”
Furthermore, he noted, “this is not opaque, hidden, falsified or excluded income by the taxpayer from the knowledge of the Tax Agency.”
