Italy’s highest court has acquitted late Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona of tax evasion charges, ending a 30-year legal battle between the former Napoli striker and tax authorities.
Maradona was accused of using representation companies in Liechtenstein to avoid legal fees by receiving payments between 1985 and 1990 from the Italian club for his personal image rights.
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“This is over and I can clearly state, without fear of being contradicted, that Maradona has never been a tax evader,” his lawyer, Angelo Pisani, told Reuters.
Rome’s Court of Cassation overturned a 2018 verdict in December, a court document published on Wednesday and seen by Reuters showed.
Maradona died in November 2020 due to a heart attack. Napoli and Argentine national team fans worshiped him as the “god of football.”
Investigations into the footballer’s tax payments began in the early 1990s and resulted in charges of 37 million euros ($40.38 million) and the confiscation of some of the player’s belongings during his visits to Italy.
Pisani added that the final verdict “does justice to the fans, to the values of sport, but above all to the memory of Maradona.”
“It is a tombstone about a persecution that he suffered for 30 years,” he said.
“The heirs now have the legal right to claim damages,” Pisani said. “I hope they use it, in memory of his father.”
