AAncelotti has been handed a 12-month prison term for defrauding the tax authorities in Spain, with a court in Madrid ruling that he had committed ‘an offence against tax authorities’.

However, Ancelotti will not serve any prison time as sentences below two years are normally suspended under Spanish law.

He has also been fined €386,361.93 (£327,000) for the tax fraud related to 2014 earnings, a fraction of the original penalty wanted by the Spanish Tax Agency, which was looking for a figure of €3.2m (£2.7m).

The sentencing at the Audiencia Provincial court followed a trial in Madrid in April where Ancelotti was defending claims by the Spanish Tax Agency of tax evasion related to a failure to pay €1m (£834,275) in tax on his image rights during the football manager’s first stint in charge of Real Madrid Football Club between 2013 and 2015.

The former Chelsea and Everton manager, who has recently taken over as country manager for Brazil after four years back at Real Madrid.

At the trial in April, Ancelotti told the court that Real Madrid FC structured his salary so 15% of his annual remuneration was paid as image rights, adding, ‘I got in touch with my British adviser and I didn’t think any more about it’.

But prosecutors argued that the way his finances were structured was ‘complex’ and ‘confusing’ using shell companies in the UK and British Virgin Islands to disguise his earnings.

There will be disappointment for the Spanish Tax Agency as the one-year sentence fell far short of its original demand for a minimum sentence of four years, nine months, pressed for by prosecutors.

However, as with the many tax avoidance cases which have been brought against Spanish footballers and managers over the years, none have resulted in custodial sentences.

Carlo Ancelotti denies €1m tax avoidance allegations | 4 Apr 2025