Luka Modric Escapes Time in Jail

Luka Modric, who stunned the entire footballing world by winning the Ballon d’Or award, earlier this week, and thus breaking the domination by Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi since a decade, will not face charges of giving false testimony in the criminal trial of his former boss at Dinamo Zagreb, who was earlier in June, convicted of evading tax and siphoning transfer fees from the club.

A Croatian appeals court rejected a request by the prosecutors to have charges reinstated against the 33-year-old Croatian international midfielder that had been thrown out by a lower court earlier.

“The (Zagreb county) court rejected the appeal by the state attorney and confirmed the first-instance decision that there was not a sufficient level of evidence to raise an indictment,” the court’s spokesman Kresimir Devcic revealed in a statement to the press.

Real Madrid’s midfielder Modric,?who was named the 2018 Ballon d’Or winner on Monday, had testified last year at the trial of a tax official and three former senior officials from Dinamo Zagreb, including the?former chief executive Zdravko Mamic.

In June, Mamic was sentenced to six-and-a-half years jail for siphoning away millions of dollars in transfer fees from the club, including part of the ?15 million the club was paid when Modric had completed the transfer from Tottenham Hotspur in 2008.

Despite his accusation and conviction, Mamic is at large and living in Bosnia. The prosecutors have accused Luka Modric of giving false testimony at the trial, about the dates when he signed annexes to his professional contracts of that which covered the entire sum of the transfer fees.

In September this year, Croatia’s state attorney?also charged Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren?with a similar kind of offence as Luka Modric has been. That particular case is still pending, and awaiting the verdict of the court.