Former Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandaric was on Tuesday charged with two counts of tax evasion relating to his time in charge of the club.
England’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that Mandaric, now chairman of Leicester, had been ordered to appear before City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Feb. 11 in connection with a payment of US$295,000 to another person via a bank account in Monaco.
Mandaric was first informed of the impending charges last month, at which point his solicitors confirmed that they related to monies paid to former Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp.
Mandaric and Redknapp both deny any wrong-doing. Mandaric’s solicitors have indicated that they will call in tax experts to dispute the authorities’ position that the payment was liable for tax and national insurance.
The CPS said in a statement that there “sufficient evidence” that tax and national insurance had been avoided and that it was “in the public interest to charge Mr Mandaric with two counts of cheating the public revenue.”
Redknapp, now the manager of Tottenham, was also informed last month that he would face charges in relation to the payments and is awaiting a date for a preliminary court hearing.
As well as pursuing Mandaric, Redknapp and Storrie individually, the UK tax authorities are seeking to have Portsmouth wound up because it does not believe it will be able to recover tax, national insurance and value added tax payments they say they are owed by the club.
A petition for a move that would effectively result in the club being declared bankrupt was issued last month and a court hearing on the issue is due next month.
Portsmouth were left waiting to discover on Tuesday if their transfer embargo would be lifted by the Premier League after presenting officials with “new information.”
A Premier League spokesman said after Tuesday’s meeting: “Portsmouth have provided the Premier League board with new information regarding their outstanding debt to other football clubs. The Premier League board will now consider this new information and make a decision in due course.”
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