This is one of many tax fraud cases in Spain involving non-Spanish footballer.

Manchester United footballer Alexis Sanchez has been handed a 16-month suspended prison sentence in Spain after being sentenced for tax fraud, according to reports. He becomes the latest footballer to fall foul of Spanish tax authorities.

Last month, the player admitted to defrauding Spanish tax authorities of £900,000 ($1.24 million) from image rights during his time at La Liga giants Barcelona.

According to reports, Chilean international Sanchez set up a Maltese company called Numidia Trading in a tax avoidance scheme to stop paying on his image rights deals between 2012 and 2013.

He has been fined £525,000 and will also re-pay the money to the authorities, but will avoid a jail term if he does not commit a crime in the next two years, reports state.

Footballers in Spain have been investigated by the tax authorities in recent years because of the abolition of the Beckham Rule for professional footballers. When David Beckham went to Spain to play for Real Madrid in 2003, a special Spanish tax system (Regimen especial para Trabajadores Desplazados) was set up for him so he did not have to pay tax on his worldwide image rights. This system was extended to people moving to Spain, although in an ironic twist, professional footballers were excluded from the scheme from 1 January 2015.

This has sparked investigations into the biggest stars in Spanish football since the abolition of the rule. In 2016, Lionel Messi and his father were found guilty on three counts of defrauding tax authorities of £3.4 million from income made from image rights. In January, Croatia midfielder Luka Modric reportedly paid €1.0 million to avoid a jail sentence over a tax issue.