A Madrid court on Wednesday handed down a one-year sentence and a €386,000 ($452,000) fine to Brazil coach Carlo Ancelotti for failing to pay tax on his image rights revenues when he was Real Madrid manager in 2014, the court said in a statement.
Ancelotti is likely to receive a suspended sentence as Spain law is such that any sentence under two years for a nonviolent crime rarely requires a defendant without previous convictions to serve jail time.
Ancelotti, who managed Real Madrid from 2013 to 2015 and between 2021 and 2025, was cleared of a similar charge for 2015, as the court could not prove he had stayed long enough in Spain to incur tax liabilities, the court added. He moved to London after Real Madrid sacked him in May 2015.
Carlos Sánchez, Ancelotti’s press officer, told The Associated Press that the coach “will not make comments for now.”
Brazil’s football confederation said in a statement that it was following the case.
Prosecutors sought a prison term of four years and nine months, and a fine of €3.2 million ($3.7m).
Their contention was that in 2014 and 2015, Ancelotti reported only the salary he was paid by Madrid and omitted image rights income in his Spanish tax returns.
Ancelotti is the latest in a string of high-profile players and coaches to be investigated by Spanish tax authorities.
Many cases — including those of leading players such as Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Spain’s Diego Costa — were settled out of court, with large fines paid.
In 2023, however, the Supreme Court upheld the acquittal of former Bayer Leverkusen and now Real Madrid coach Xabi Alonso after he refused to settle and defended his innocence.
Ancelotti, who turned 66 last month, is one of football’s most successful coaches. He is the only coach to have won the Champions League five times, three with Madrid and twice with AC Milan, and the only coach to have won domestic league titles in England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France.
Ancelotti left his second stint at Real Madrid in May to take over Brazil’s national team.
Information from Reuters and The Associated Press was used in this report.
>
