Ronaldo and Mourinho ‘avoided millions in tax’

Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho have avoided paying tax on millions of dollars of earnings by channeling money to the British Virgin Islands, according to claims based on a huge document leak.

The claims were published by the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) journalists’ consortium, that includes Spain’s El Mundo, the UK’s Sunday Times and Germany’s Der Spiegel. The consortium says it intends to publish a series of articles under the banner “Football Leaks” over the coming weeks.

The leak comes eight months after the Panama Papers leaks lifted the lid on how the world's rich and powerful use tax havens to hide their wealth.

One of the newspapers in the consortium, the Dutch NRC, claims that Ronaldo moved €63.5 million to the British Virgin Islands at the end of 2014.

It says that the Portuguese striker received sponsorship fees that were moved via two Irish companies to the tax haven, a mere 11 days before Spain – where he plays - changed an advantageous tax law.

Mourinho is reported to have moved €12 million into a Swiss account owned by a British Virgin Islands company.

According to the reports, the first batch of leaks centred on a “system” that was put in place by Jorge Mendes – the agent of Ronaldo and Mourinho.

Mendes’ company Gestifute said in a statement that Ronaldo and Mourinho had “fully respected their obligations vis-à-vis the Spanish and British authorities”.

It noted that neither Ronaldo nor Mourinho “have been implicated in legal proceedings of the tax evasion commission in Spain” and stressed that it had always acted with “the highest degree of professionalism in relations with [its] clients and authorities.”

It went on to accuse the journalists’ consortium of operating in an “insidious” way with regards the football stars’ tax obligations.