MADRID, April 11 (Reuters) - A Spanish court has given AS Monaco striker Wissam Ben Yedder a six-month suspended prison sentence and fined him 133,799 euros ($145,961) for tax offences during his time as a Sevilla player, court documents showed on Tuesday.
In Spain, prison sentences under two years for non-violent crimes rarely require a defendant without previous convictions to serve jail time.
The sentence was agreed in a plea deal between Ben Yedder's defence, the prosecutor and the state attorney who represented tax authorities.
French national Ben Yedder, who played for Sevilla between 2016 and 2019, failed to pay his taxes on time in 2017, according to the court document dated March 9 and disclosed on Tuesday.
Following a request from tax authorities in 2019, the striker paid 225,323 euros in back taxes but did not include interest received as income from movable capital and failed to declare a sponsorship contract with Adidas, the document said.
Ben Yedder later paid 51,007 euros to include those items plus interest.
Players such as Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, Argentina's Lionel Messi or Brazilian-Spanish player Diego Costa have also faced tax cases in Spain. They all agreed to settle by paying large fines.
Reporting by Emma Pinedo; Editing by David Latona and Christian Radnedge
FaithEvans
0
So how come it’s just Spain It shows the problem isn’t the players it’s the country
Has something to do with the Beckham law brought into the country when David Beckham signed for Madrid, it's to make sure franchise players pay less taxes, this is suppose to encourage the best players to come to La Liga. The law has since been repealed, however, the financial structure to avoid paying maximum tax still exists, and players/rich people still use them. It's tedious to investigate because it involves using offshore accounts in faraway countries. This is why it takes a long time to bring the tax evader to justice. Some may get away with it, many won't.
baabclmos
0
I really support your advice to foreign players to stop playing in Spain, because they don't want foreign players to play in their league and it's foreign players that carry competition in their. I am really sorry for Vinicius Jr and his fellow Brazilians
tax is for foreign ok
abdulgg
2
why always foreigners player's 🙄 stop going to Spain sorry for chuwkueazee
Jetabceosz
4
I really support your advice to foreign players to stop playing in Spain, because they don't want foreign players to play in their league and it's foreign players that carry competition in their. I am really sorry for Vinicius Jr and his fellow Brazilians
Javimor
0
Or the players should stop cheating the system. They're paid absurd amount of money to be avoiding taxes
So how come it’s just Spain It shows the problem isn’t the players it’s the country
FaithEvans
0
Foreign players should stop going to Spain. They don't want them to earn anything
Or the players should stop cheating the system. They're paid absurd amount of money to be avoiding taxes
ATJr_46
5
Foreign players should stop going to Spain. They don't want them to earn anything
tumeinrsy
2
Spain and tax be like bread and butter
tumeinrsy
0
life time advice? anything you do in life never ever go to Spain and refuse to pay your taxes because even if you're not in there country again they will find you wherever you are and arrest you