ROME: Italy’s highest court docket cleared the late Agentine soccer legend Diego Maradona of tax evasion expenses, ending a 30-year-long authorized battle between the ex-Napoli striker and income authorities.
Often called “El Pibe de Oro”, or the Golden Foot, Maradona was accused of allegedly utilizing proxy firms in Liechtenstein to dodge authorized charges when receiving funds between 1985 and 1990 from the Napoli membership for his private picture rights.
“It’s over and I can clearly state with out concern of being contradicted that Maradona has by no means been a tax evader,” his lawyer, Angelo Pisani, informed Reuters.
Rome’s Courtroom of Cassation overturned a 2018 verdict in mid-December, a court docket doc revealed on Wednesday and seen by Reuters confirmed.
Maradona died in November 2020 from a coronary heart assault. Followers of Napoli and of the Argentine nationwide group worshipped him because the “god of soccer”.
Investigations into the footballer’s tax funds began within the early Nineteen Nineties and resulted in expenses of €37 million (US$40.38 million) and the confiscation of among the participant’s belongings throughout his visits to Italy.
Pisani added that the ultimate verdict “does justice to followers, to the values of sport, however principally to the reminiscence of Maradona”.
“It locations a grave stone on a persecution that he suffered for 30 years,” he mentioned.
“The heirs now have a authorized proper to say damages,” Pisani mentioned. “I hope that they use it, in reminiscence of their father.”
