Argentine footballer Ángel Di María, who this week "pleaded guilty to tax fraud in Spain, used the same two Irish companies" as part of his image rights payments structure that have "figured in the tax investigations" of Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo and ManU Manager José Mourinho. Di María transferred his image rights to Sunpex Corp., a company in the tax haven of Panama. Sunpex then ceded his rights to Dublin companies Multisports & Image Management and Polaris Sports, according to the Spanish reports of the legal complaint against him. Polaris and MIM "were both also used in the image rights structures" employed by Mourinho and Ronaldo (IRISH TIMES, 6/22).
Through operating company WRFC Trading Ltd., Premiership rugby side Worcester Warriors made a profit of £13.8M in the year ending June '16 "due to a write-off of shareholder loans" worth £20.4M during the year. The accounts were filed in April, "but this extraordinary item" emerged this week. The underlying loss for the year before tax was £6.6M, an increase of £1.1M from the prior year. Turnover increased by £1.5M to £9.8M, which was due to an additional £700,000 in central funding, £600,000 in gate receipts and £200,000 from "other commercial activity" (RUNNING RUGBY, 6/21).
