Brazil boss Carlo Ancelotti given prison sentence for tax fraud

A Spanish court handed Brazil coach Carlo Ancelotti a one-year prison sentence for failing to pay tax on his image rights revenues in 2014 when the Italian was Real Madrid manager, according to a statement.

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.

He moved to London after Real Madrid sacked him in May 2015 before becoming Bayern Munich manager in 2016.

Ancelotti is likely to receive a suspended sentence as, under Spanish law, any sentence under two years for a non-violent crime rarely requires a defendant without previous convictions to serve jail time.

He was accused of deliberately misinforming the tax office to avoid paying more than €1m (£833,000) in income tax. In addition to the one-year prison sentence, he was also ordered by the Madrid court to pay a fine of €386,000 (£332,768). Prosecutors had been seeking a prison term of four years and nine months, and a fine of €3.2m (£2.76m).

When asked about his income from the transfer of his image rights to Real Madrid, Ancelotti said: “I was only concerned with collecting six million net for three years, and I never realized anything was wrong , and I never received any communication that the Prosecutor's Office was investigating me.

“When Real Madrid proposed this to me (referring to the transfer of image rights) I contacted my English advisor and never went into the matter because everything seemed correct to me. I didn't think it could be fraud, although if I'm here, I believe things weren't so correct.”

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Ancelotti continued to deny wrongdoing throughout his trial.

The 66-year-old former AC Milan, Chelsea and Everton manager is the latest of several football players and coaches to be investigated and convicted by the Spanish tax authority for alleged tax fraud.

Additional reporting from Reuters