{"id":680428,"date":"2019-08-13T22:23:42","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T22:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"
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Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa has agreed to pay 1.7 million euros ($1.9 million) to Spain\u2019s tax agency which was investigating him for non-payment of taxes on image rights, a Spanish newspaper reported Tuesday.<"},"modified":"2019-08-13T22:23:42","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T22:23:42","slug":"diego-costa-to-pay-1-7-million-euros-to-settle-spain-tax-vanguard-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/08\/13\/diego-costa-to-pay-1-7-million-euros-to-settle-spain-tax-vanguard-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Diego Costa to pay 1.7 million euros to settle Spain tax…- Vanguard News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa has agreed to pay 1.7 million euros ($1.9 million) to Spain\u2019s tax agency which was investigating him for non-payment of taxes on image rights, a Spanish newspaper reported Tuesday.<\/p>\n

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The agency said the 30-year-old hid income earned in 2014 from a sponsorship deal signed with Adidas shortly before he joined Chelsea from Atletico that year. Costa, who has both Brazilian and Spanish citizenship, returned to Atletico in 2018.<\/p>\n

Under a deal with Spain\u2019s tax office, Costa will plead guilty to tax evasion and pay 1.1 million euros in back taxes, daily newspaper El Mundo, reported.<\/p>\n

He will also be sentenced to six months in jail but will not serve time and instead pay a fine of 600,000 euros, the paper said. The agreement will be made official at a Madrid court on October 4, El Mundo reported.<\/p>\n

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Contacted by AFP, a spokesman for the tax office, said he could not comment on individual tax files.<\/p>\n

Costa is the latest famous footballers to have fallen foul of Spain\u2019s tax authorities.<\/p>\n

A Spanish court in January handed Portuguese striker Cristiano Ronaldo a suspended two-year prison sentence for committing tax fraud when he was at Real Madrid.<\/p>\n

The player, who joined Italian side Juventus last year, also agreed to pay 18.8 million euros in fines and back taxes to settle the case, according to judicial sources.<\/p>\n

Barcelona\u2019s Lionel Messi paid a two-million-euro fine in 2016 in his own tax wrangle and received a 21-month jail term.<\/p>\n

The prison sentence was later reduced to a further fine of 252,000 euros, equivalent to 400 euros per day of the original term.<\/p>\n

VANGUARD<\/p>\n

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