‘Tax rate influenced Ronaldo’s La Liga departure’
La Liga president Javier Tebas said that the tax rate in Spain contributed to Cristiano Ronaldo leaving Real Madrid and Spain’s La Liga and suggested that high tax rate was stunting the growth of the league.
Ronaldo left Real Madrid after nine seasons to join Italian champions Juventus in a €100 million transfer earlier this month. The top tax rate in Italy it is 46.29 percent, compared to 52 percent in Spain.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Tebas believed that Ronaldo would earn more in net salary even if he was paid the same wage that Real Madrid paid.
"His departure to Italy favours him because he will earn more money than here," Tebas told Marca TV. "From an international view, in Spain we have a problem that we can't compete from a fiscal standpoint.
"When it comes to having the same [wage] offer from Real Madrid, Ronaldo gets more net by being in Italy. That must have added when it came to him making the decision.
"In the big leagues, the worst fiscal treatment players get is in Spain. When you earn big sums of money then that small difference is already a lot of money for a player.
"We have to work on this because having this fiscal situation penalises us and prevents us from growing as a competition,” Tebas added.
In June, Spanish outlet Mundo Deportivo reported that Ronaldo accepted a two-year prison sentence and 18.8m euros in fine in a tax evasion case. Ronaldo was unlikely to serve any time in jail under the deal because Spanish law states that a sentence of under two years for a first offence can be served on probation.
Ronaldo, who was named the world’s third highest paid athlete by Forbes last month has plenty of income outside of football. He has his own CR7 branded products and chain of hotels. He also has a lifetime contract with Nike that is worth one billion dollars.
ESPN cited a La Gazzetta dello Sport which said that Ronaldo would benefit from a new law in Italy that allows tax contributors moving to the country to pay as little as €100,000 in taxes on earnings outside it.
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