Spanish prosecutors have accused José Mourinho of defrauding the country’s tax authorities of €3.3m, after finding that the Portuguese coach used a company in the British Virgin Islands to conceal earnings from the sale of his image rights.
The accusations against Mr Mourinho, manager of Manchester United, date from his time as coach at Real Madrid. Prosecutors believe the 54-year-old failed to declare earnings worth more than €7m during 2011 and 2012, on which he should have paid €3.3m in taxes.
According to a statement yesterday, Mr Mourinho did so “with the aim of obtaining an illicit gain” and after setting up a deliberately “opaque” company structure to manage the earnings from his image rights.