MUNICH: Uli Hoeness, president of European football champions Bayern Munich, has admitted in court to defrauding Germany’s tax authorities of 18m euros (£15m; $25m).
Prosecutors had earlier accused him of evading a far smaller sum of 3.5m euros in taxes and are seeking a jail term.
The former World Cup-winning German international footballer, 62, kept the funds in a secret Swiss bank account.
He told the court he deeply regretted “my wrongdoing”.
“I will do everything necessary to ensure that this depressing chapter for me is closed,” he said.
The former Germany forward, who helped the national team win the 1972 European Championship and then the World Cup two years later, came clean about his secret bank account last year, filing an amended tax return in the hope of an amnesty in return for paying the tax he owed.
But prosecutors say he did so because investigators were already on his case.
The penalty for tax evasion can be 10 years in jail, though the prosecution says it will seek a seven-year sentence. A verdict is expected on Thursday.
Munich state prosecutor Achim von Engel read out the indictment against Hoeness shortly after the start of the trial, described as one of the most spectacular of the year by the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
He alleged that the defendant had failed to declare the income he held at Vontobel bank in Switzerland.
He is charged with not declaring 33,526,614 euros in tax returns from 2004 to 2009 in income on which he should have paid 3,545,939 euros and 70 cents.
Despite the tax evasion scandal, Hoeness remains a very popular figure at the club he helped build up. (Agencies)
