Photo Gallery What Did They Know?
Some say it is unlikely that professional football players keep a close enough eye on their finances to know that they are using complicated constructs to reduce their tax payments in ways that may be illigel. Real Madrid player Cristiano Ronaldo even signed contracts with an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands. Can someone who has signed these types of documents truly claim that he knew nothing?
Football agent Jorge Mendes arrives in court in Pozuelo de Alarcon outside Madrid to testify in the tax investigation. Several players Mendes represents have been ordered to appear at the court in recent months.
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho: After DER SPIEGEL published an exposé last winter about the trainer's offshore activities, his lawyer wrote to Mourinho's London PR firm: "The house is burning."
Real Madrid fan José Luis Pardo Boal hasn't missed a home match in 22 years. "We are interested in Ronaldo as a player. We don't care about the rest. If he has made a mistake, he will pay a fine. End of story," Boal says of the tax scandal.
