Spanish clubs may struggle to attract top stars

Bengaluru, August 3: From Barcelona's star striker Lionel Messi to his arch-rival Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid, many football stars have fallen foul of the Spanish taxman over the past few years.

Ronaldo appeared in court last week, accused of evading 14.7 million euros in tax.

La Liga president Javier Tebas has told Spanish media that that Spanish clubs may struggle to attract top stars in the future if the nation's tax laws are not clarified and said that Ronaldo deserves "the presumption of innocence" over his tax case.

Tebas warned that general uncertainty surrounding the interpretation of the law by the Hacienda tax authority risked putting leading players off La Liga.

Tebas, a lawyer by trade, said Spanish football was looking for "legal certainty" about what taxes must be paid.

"In the case of Cristiano, we will wait until the end and respect the presumption of innocence," he said.

"We must not forget that in the cases under investigation Cristiano was not tax resident in Spain, which has legal ramifications.

"What I can say is that football has paid the historic debt it had with Hacienda, and that football, a sector which generates more than €1 billion in taxes for the state, needs legal certainty."

Tebas warned that the cases could make it difficult for clubs to attract star names in future, adding: "No doubt, but not tax pressure in itself, rather the change in criteria for the tax authority in many aspects of football -- from agents' commissions to players' image rights to the taxes due when a foreign club sells a player to Spain.

"Without doubt all this makes us lose competitively against rivals like the Premier League, who have much clearer and better tax laws.

"I am not asking for anything strange, just to let us compete on an equal playing field."

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