TIL when Cristiano Ronaldo was asked to donate his cleats to a 10-month-old kid who had a brain disorder, he instead gave $83k to fully pay for the surgery the child would have.

It was obviously the accounting agencies or whatever that they'd hired to deal with the money, and the time they referred to was when Messi was around 19-20 btw. Looks like it was common practice too, since the laws were weird before they changed them and it was easy to exploit - image rights I think it was. They got plenty of footballers and coaches etc. on that law and got to cash in. Not like the footballers said let's do lots of tax fraud! When they would bear the brunt of the shit storm if it was ever discovered, and surprise! Messi had a terrible time. Then Ronaldo came long after, and while he defrauded for triple the amount he got almost no shit for it - because you know - all footballers do it.

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - businessinsider.com