Football: Authorities reject Maradona tax claim

MILAN: The Italian tax authorities on Friday denied claims that Diego Maradona had won his right to return to the country after being cleared of owing nearly €40 million in unpaid taxes.

The former Napoli and Argentina footballer’s lawyer had earlier said that the long-running case against his client had been dropped, lifting the ban on him travelling to the country. But the commission in-charge of the dossier later insisted that the ruling that he owed unpaid taxes totalling €37.2 million had been ‘neither annulled nor declared lapsed’, said the Italian news agency ANSA.

Nor had it ‘changed the debt owned by Diego Armando Maradona to the Italian treasury’, the debt recovery agency was quoted as saying. The agency said that it had not ruled out a complaint against Maradona for making ‘false statements’.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2013.