The Spanish tax authority claimed that during his time as Real Madrid manager, Mourinho did not pay €3.3m (£2.9m) in due taxes between 2011 and 2012. He faced two counts of tax fraud of €1.61m for 2011 and €1.69m for 2012.
But after a brief hearing in Madrid, Mourinho said he had paid a fee to settle the case.
The Madrid provincial public prosecutor’s office originally said in June 2017 that Mourinho created a ‘network of shell companies with the object of hiding profits from his image rights’.
Mourinho joined Real Madrid football club in March 2010, transferring his residence for tax purposes to the Spanish capital after a spell as manager at Inter Milan. In his 2011 and 2012 tax returns, he was alleged to have failed to declare earnings from his image rights, which prosecutors said he did ‘with the intention of obtaining illegal benefit’.
But Mourinho said after his hearing on 3 November 2017: ‘I left Spain in 2013 with the information and the conviction that my tax situation was perfectly legal.
‘A couple of years later I was informed that an investigation had been opened and I was told that in order to regularise my situation I had to pay X amount of money.
‘I did not answer, I did not argue. I paid and signed with the state that I am in compliance and the case is closed.’
When the charges were initially brought against Mourinho in June, his representatives said he had paid more than €26m (£23.1m) in taxes, with an average tax rate over 41%, and accepted the regularisation proposals made by the Spanish tax authorities in 2015 regarding the years of 2011 and 2012 and entered into a settlement agreement regarding 2013.
'The Spanish government in turn, through the tax department, issued a certificate in which it attested that he had regularised his position and was in compliance with all his tax obligations,' they said at the time. Mourinho is one of several football stars whose time in Spain has resulted in tax issues.
Argentines Lionel Messi, Javier Mascherano and Angel Di Maria have all been punished for tax evasion, while a case against Real Madrid star striker Cristiano Ronaldo continues. He denies wrongdoing.
Report by Calum Fuller
