Arda Turan ‘under investigation for tax fraud related to 2015 and 2016’

Former Atletico Madrid and Barcelona star Arda Turan has reportedly become the latest player to fall foul of the Spanish taxman. 

Turan, 36, is accused of failing to pay significant sums totalling £727,000 to the Spanish tax authorities over the years 2015 and 2016. 

It is alleged, by Vozpopuli (via Sport), a Spanish newspaper, that the former Turkey international did not correctly disclose his income, with the missing tax related to both his income and image rights.

It is said that the case was opened in 2021 by the Economic Crimes Prosecutor, with Turan allegedly failing to pay £499,000 in 2015 and then a further £228,000 the following year. 

Allegedly, the Prosecutors Office say that the Turk, ‘far from filling his obligation’, failed to provide a personal assessment for his income tax. 

The former Atletico Madrid and Barcelona star reportedly owed more than £700,000 

However, it is said that Turan has already settled for the amounts which he allegedly owed, meaning a compromise could be reached between the two parties. 

Turan is not the first La Liga star, current or former, to have fallen foul of the Spanish tax authorities.

Neymar, back in 2020, was revealed to owe the Spanish authorities an enormous £30m in unpaid tax after an official document was released. It was said no other figure on the authorities’ blacklist at that juncture owed more. 

Cristiano Ronaldo, meanwhile, agreed to pay a £16.5m settlement in 2019, after he had left Real Madrid for Juventus.

The Portuguese had been accused of defrauding the tax office out of a sum totalling £12.9m in unpaid taxes between 2011 and 2014. 

It was said that Ronaldo ‘intentionally’ failed to declare the full extend of his earnings for the period, saying he had earned £10m for the period related to to 2011-2014 when it was in fact closer to £40m. 

He also intentionally failed to declare £25m earned through image rights. 

He settled before the trial went to court and paid the fine so as to avoid jail time. Spanish judges can suspend sentences of two years or less for first time offenders.

Turan’s former Barcelona team-mate Lionel Messi had a run-in with the authorities in 2017

Lionel Messi, meanwhile, also had a run-in with the authorities during his time with Barcelona. The Argentine, who was, alongside Ronaldo, one of the most handsomely paid athletes on the planet by his Spanish club, was forced to pay a £223,000 fine to the authorities.

Messi and his father, Jorge, were found guilty of tax fraud related to the sum of some £3.6m between 2007 and 2009. His 21-month suspended sentence was reduced to a fine. 

It is not the first time Turan himself has allegedly been in trouble with the law. In 2019, he was handed a suspended sentence of two years and eight months after illegally firing a gun to cause fear and panic. 

Turan, who was on loan with Turkish club Basaksehir at the time, got into an altercation with a singer named Berkay Sahin. The music star was left with a broken nose, with Turan later going to the hospital to confront him again – this time armed with a gun, which he used to shoot at the ground.