Nasri contesting unpaid tax seizure after reported food delivery probe

Former France footballer Samir Nasri is contesting the seizure by French tax authorities of 5.5 million euros in cash and assets, his lawyers told AFP on Tuesday.

Les Echos newspaper said on March 31 that tax authorities had provisionally seized the equivalent of 5.5 million euros ($6.4m) from Nasri's bank accounts and a property.

Authorities have opened proceedings against Nasri, now a prominent football pundit on French television station Canal+, to recover 5.25 million euros in unpaid income tax from 2020-22 and another 82,000 euros of unpaid property tax from 2019-25, the newspaper said.

"This debt doesn't exist because the (tax) administration has confused bank loans with undeclared income," Jean-Noel Sanchez, one of Nasri's lawyers, told AFP.

Another of his lawyers, Julien Riahi, said that they were in discussions with the tax authorities to straighten out the issue.

The case reportedly stems from 212 home food deliveries which they say proved Nasri was living in France and not in the United Arab Emirates, as he had declared.

Sanchez said that some of the deliveries were to Nasri's mother, who apparently shares a bank account with her son.

Nasri's lawyers claimed that the ex-footballer lives in Dubai with his partner and son and only travels to France to work for Canal+ on Champions League nights.

Tax authorities did not comment when contacted by AFP.