The Real Madrid forward, who has denied the charges and said that his “conscience is clear”, arrived at a Madrid court on Monday to give evidence, reports the BBC.
Prosecutors allege that he took “advantage of a company structure created in 2010 to hide income generated in Spain from his image rights from tax authorities”.
He is believed to have used shell companies in the British Virgin Islands, Ireland, Colombia and Panama to hide earnings from his image rights.
If convicted, he faces a fine of at least €28m and a prison sentence of three and a half years, according to the union of tax experts (Gestha) at Spain’s inland revenue service.
Denial
According to Spanish newspaper El Español, Ronaldo claimed in court on Monday that he was being persecuted because of who he is.
“If I wasn’t called Cristiano Ronaldo I wouldn’t be sat here,” he said.
Judge Gomez Ferrer replied: “You are mistaken. Plenty of anonymous people have sat where you are. You are under investigation for an alleged financial crime based on the evidence provided by the public prosecutor and upon which it is my duty to make a ruling.”
Ronaldo said: “No, no. All of this is happening because I am Cristiano Ronaldo.”
Football tax evasion
Ronaldo is by no means the only international football star to face allegations of tax avoidance.
Lionel Messi, his Barcelona and La Liga rival, was handed a 21-month prison sentence for tax fraud for evading €4.1m in taxes between 2007 and 2009.
His prison sentence was replaced with a €255,000 fine. Messi and his father, who was also indicted, had already made a €5m “corrective payment” in August 2013.
Under Spanish law, prison sentences of less than two years can be served on probation.
However, with Ronaldo facing more than two years in prison, it is less likely that he will be able to swap his jail time for a fine.
He is also accused of evading more than three times the sum that Messi was convicted of hiding from the Spanish tax authorities.
