The Portuguese Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the coach of the country’s national soccer team, Fernando Santos, and the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) for alleged tax fraud, the weekly ‘Expresso’ reported today. According to the publication, the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating alleged tax crimes due to the system used for Santos to receive his salary as a coach.
The FPF paid Femacosa, a company owned by the coach, who then distributed the amount between the coach himself and his technical team.
The investigations surrounding the 67-year-old coach of the ‘quinas’ began last May, when the newspaper ‘Expresso’ revealed that the Portuguese treasury considered this formula aimed at avoiding taxes.
The investigators suspected that the company was fictitious and discovered that Santos declared a salary equal to 70,000 euros per year even though he received 10 million from the FPF. For this reason, the Treasury requested from the coach the payment of 4.5 million euros in arrears for the period between 2016 and 2017.
The debt was paid, but Santos appealed the decision, which was rejected in early October by the Administrative Arbitration Center (CAAD) on the grounds that he must pay income tax for individual compensation (similar to the Spanish IRFP) as a national coach, and not corporate tax through that firm.
Fernando Santos has been the national coach since 2014 and won Euro 2016 in France and the Nations League in 2018, the first major trophies for the Portuguese team.
Source: La Verdad
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