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N'Golo Kante refused to have part of his Chelsea salary paid into an offshore account in Jersey to avoid tax.

“N’Golo is inflexible, he simply wants a normal salary,” claimed an email from his tax advisor to the Stamford Bridge club, according to the latest revelation from Football Leaks.

Kante moved from Leicester to Chelsea for £32m after winning the Premier League title in 2016.

French investigative website Mediapart claims 20% of his £6m salary was for image rights – and a company called NK Promotions was set up in Jersey before the transfer with the aim of paying half his image rights to the offshore company to dodge tax.

But the midfielder personally decided against the using scheme – and declined to receive any image rights payments until a deal to pay the money into a company based in the UK was agreed in February this year.

(Image: Action Images via Reuters)

He will be liable for the extra tax involved thought to total hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The leaked email to Chelsea in May 2017 claimed: “After reading numerous press articles on image rights and tax investigations against players and clubs, N’Golo is increasingly concerned that the set-up proposed to him could be questioned by the tax authorities. N’Golo decided that he did not want to take any risks.”

It is standard practice for players to be paid a percentage of their income for image rights in offshore accounts because the earnings are worldwide.

(Image: EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

A Chelsea spokesman said: “We do not comment on speculation concerning confidential contracts or player-related matters.”

Football Leaks also claimed the Stamford Bridge club risk a transfer ban for signing Bertrand Traoré when he was under-aged in 2011.

(Image: AFP)

The Burkino Faso forward was sold to Lyon for £8.8m last year.

A source with knowledge of the FIFA investigation said there are at least five other UK clubs whose conduct is being looked into.

"The club has fully cooperated with FIFA and has provided comprehensive evidence demonstrating its compliance with the applicable FIFA regulations," Chelsea said.

"We will not comment further on speculation concerning confidential contracts or player related matters."