ARGENTINE FOOTBALL LEGEND Diego Maradona has won his right to return to Italy after being cleared of owing nearly €40million in taxes, reports said today.
Maradona, the World Cup winner who helped Napoli to their only two league titles in Serie A in 1987 and 1990, had been banned from setting foot in Italy because of an alleged unpaid tax bill of €37.2m. The former player’s lawyer, Angelo Pisani, today said his client had been cleared, two years after the authorities relaunched the case, which dates back to 2005.
“Maradona has finally been liberated from this fiscal nightmare and the accusations he faced,” the lawyer, Angelo Pisani, told the Italian news agency ANSA.
An Italian court in 2005 ordered Maradona to pay €37.2m, €23.5m of which was interest, after being accused of tax evasion. The case was relaunched in 2011 due to a series of procedural errors.
Pisani said that the former star, one of the greatest but also most controversial figures in football, would now attempt to win nearly 40 million euros in damages for defamation.
