Ronaldo appears in court on tax fraud matter as he denies any tax evasion act.

The Real Madrid and Portugal forward spent 90 minutes in court being questioned by judge Mónica Ferrer Gómez over allegations that from 2011 to 2014 he defrauded the Spanish treasury of €14.7m in taxes. It is alleged that he concealed income from the sale of image rights through a financial structure that diverted the money via Ireland to a tax haven in the British Virgin Islands.

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He disappointed waiting media and fans when he arrived at court via the back door. However, he said he would speak to the media after the hearing, and journalists from some 20 countries waited for two hours in the 30C heat for him to appear. But instead they were presented with his media representative, Iñaki Torres, who was roundly booed when he announced that Ronaldo had already left for home after the preliminary hearing, which was held in camera. “He didn’t change his mind,” Torres said. “This was always an alternative.” According to his lawyers, Ronaldo “didn’t break any laws, all he did was follow criteria that the tax inspectors don’t like”. It is not a case of fraud, they insist, but of a difference of opinion.

At the court.

On July 11, a Madrid-based prosecutor’s office accused Ronaldo of four counts of tax fraud totaling €14.7 million (US$16.5 million). The prosecutor said Ronaldo used a shell company in the Virgin Islands to hide the true amount of income made from image rights, among other means of illegally reducing the amount of taxes he paid. Ronaldo, who has denied any wrongdoing, would face a large fine and a possible custodial sentence if found guilty of hiding earnings from his image rights between 2011 and 2014.Inaki Torres, head of communication at Gestifute, the agency which represents Ronaldo, told Spanish media on Monday “everything is in order.”

“My conscience is quite clear, brother. Always, man,” Ronaldo said on July 12 as he walked from a Portugal team bus into the Lisbon airport. Also on July 12, Real Madrid issued a statement saying that it was convinced Ronaldo “will demonstrate his complete innocence.”  “Real Madrid expresses its complete confidence in our player Cristiano Ronaldo, who we understand has acted within the law as far as complying with his fiscal obligations,” the statement said.