One famous former football player has became target of the Federal Revenue Service of Spain after having suspicious movements detected in the accounts of one of its companies: Kosmos Football.
According to information from the Spanish newspaper El Economista, the suspicions of the Spanish tax authorities fall on the agreement of the organization led by the former soccer player Gerard Piqué for organizing the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia.
Also according to the publication, the court responsible for the investigation asked information from one of the banks where Piqué has an account about the motivations and destinations of the resources identified in the millionaire transactions.
In addition, the Federal Revenue also identified throughout the investigations that among the reported payments, there are other suspects in other accounts of other banks.
Understand the newest controversy in which the former soccer player Piqué is involved
According to documents accessed by the Support Unit for the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime, the Saudi entity Sela Sport Company Limited, in charge of organizing the event, made a transfer of 1.99 million euros on October 12, 2021 for the former football player and another for the same amount just two days later.
However, on the same day that he received the second transfer, Piqué made a transaction involving around 670,000 euros to an unknown recipient. The signal for financial movement would be the payment of taxes, something that was denied by the Treasury of Spain.
However, even though the investigation is taking place in court secrecy, the newspaper states that the Court demanded from Caixabank – the institution where part of the suspicious transactions took place – an explanation for these hidden payments.
One possibility raised during the process is that these payments could be payments to front men of the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales. However, Justice is still looking for evidence to prove this theory.
The El Economista report also points out that the movement at Caixabank is not the only one that raised suspicions from the Treasury. Thus, an account of FC Andorra, the club that belongs to the former football player Piqué, is also in the sights of the Justice in Spain.
According to investigations, the Spanish Treasury has been requesting that evidence be provided of the outflow of funds from the club’s accounts, as it would have received around 4 million euros between June and March 2022 from Kosmos Football.
Finally, the Spanish Federal Revenue still points out that the player would have received 24 million euros in commissions to manage the Saudi Arabian Super Cup, which were divided into eight payments between December 2019 and February 2022.
