Mueez Ajao
– Former Cameroon striker Samuel Eto’o was handed a 22-month suspended prison sentence by a Spanish court on Monday after admitting tax fraud of €3.8 million ($4m) while he was playing for Barcelona.
– Eto’o agreed to pay a fine of €1.8m and the €3.8m in tax owed from image rights between 2006 and 2009.
– “I admit the facts and I am going to pay what I’m due, but let it be known that I was just a child then and that I always did what my former agent Jose Maria Mesalles, who I considered like a father, asked me to do at that time,” Eto’o, who is now 41, told the court in Barcelona on Monday.
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– Mesalles was given a one-year suspended jail term.
– The prosecution had requested prison sentences of four years and six months each for Eto’o and Mesalles.
– The sentences were suspended as neither Eto’o nor Mesalles have a criminal record and the terms are under two years.
