Prosecutors called for a 10-month jail sentence for Dutch coach Guus Hiddink, considered a candidate for the U.S. national team coaching job, and a 13-month sentence for Hiddink’s adviser on tax fraud charges.
They accuse Hiddink, currently the Russia national team coach, of evading almost $1.81 million in Dutch taxes for falsely claiming he was a resident of Belgium in 2002 and 2003. A prosecutor said Hiddink’s Belgium residence was a “joke.”
Hiddink admitted that he had never spent a single night at his Belgian residence at the trial’s opening in late January, describing himself as a sort of soccer “nomad,” according to the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, sleeping in hotels, at his girlfriend’s home in Amsterdam, at PSV’s training center and sometimes even in his car.
Hiddink returned to PSV after coaching South Korea to fourth place at the 2002 World Cup. He led Australia to the round of 16 at the 2006 World Cup. Afterwards, he quit his PSV job and part-time Australia job to take over as Russia coach.
Hiddink, who played in the NASL, was considered a U.S. national team coaching candidate because of his success at the World Cup and his knowledge of U.S. soccer, having brought young Americans DaMarcus Beasley and Lee Nguyen to PSV.