Spanish authorities fined Diego Costa half a million euros for tax offences but the Atletico striker will not serve a six-month jail term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Atl\u00e9tico Madrid striker Diego Costa has been fined \u20ac543,208 for tax fraud\u00a0but will not serve any of his six-month prison sentence, as is customary under Spanish law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Atletico Madrid striker Costa appeared at court in the capital on Thursday, wearing a protective face mask, and entered a guilty plea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The charges related to the image rights arrangements made on Costa’s behalf when he moved from Atleti to Chelsea in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was found to have evaded \u20ac1.1million in taxes, which the 31-year-old repaid in full last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Prosecutor’s Office recommended a six-month prison sentence and a fine of \u20ac507,208.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spain’s legal system allows for non-violent crimes carrying a jail term of under two years to be replaced by a fine and, under this provision, Costa will pay an additional \u20ac36,000 – calculated as a 12-month fine at \u20ac100 per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Diego Costa reached an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office months ago and has already paid the corresponding fine plus interest,” said an Atl\u00e9tico spokesman in a statement reported by Mundo Deportivo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The request for a prison sentence was withdrawn.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric and Javier Mascherano are among the star footballers to have breached tax laws in Spain over recent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spanish authorities fined Diego Costa half a million euros for tax offences but the Atletico striker will not serve a six-month jail term. Atl\u00e9tico Madrid striker Diego Costa has been fined \u20ac543,208 for tax fraud\u00a0but will not serve any of his six-month prison sentence, as is customary under Spanish law. Atletico Madrid striker Costa appeared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-champions-league"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballvoyage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}