The Barcelona court had asked for four and a half years of imprisonment and a fine of 14.3 million: the offenses date back to the years in which the Cameroonian played in Catalonia
Four tax offenses, linked to image rights and committed between 2006 and 2009, cost Samuel Eto’o 5.6 million euros. This was decided by the eleventh section of the Criminal Court of Barcelona, accepting the proposed agreement – reached before the celebration of the trial – between the former Blaugrana player and the Prosecutor’s Office, which in reality had made much higher demands. The prosecution had in fact asked for four and a half years of imprisonment and a fine of 14.3 million, to then settle for one year and ten months of detention and the payment of 1.8 million. Eto’o, however, will not go to jail and compensate the Spanish tax authorities for the amount of the fraud, that is 3.8 million.
Offenses
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The Cameroonian admitted that he had transferred part of the proceeds from image rights to a company based in Hungary; in this way, that money would not have been subject to Spanish taxation, a lower rate being applied to the amount actually declared. Eto’o acknowledged the crimes, but indicated as responsible for these actions one of his collaborators, José Maria Mesalles, who received the same sentence. “It was he who took care of these aspects, then I was a kid. I always did what he told me, but I will pay, ”he said in front of the judge. Purchased from Barcelona in 2004, he was 25 at the start of the violations. Instead, the director of the company, Manuel de Jesus Lastre, was acquitted for not participating in the events.
June 20 – 5:30 pm
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