Fernando Martin Vicente, head of the Spanish Federation for Mentally Handicapped Sports, (FEDDI) was also ordered to return €142,355 (£88,567/$204,728) he had helped distribute to players who were not entitled to the Government funding because they were not disabled.

Spain were stripped of the gold medals they won at Sydney 2000 and they were given instead to Russia after Carlos Ribagorda, a member of the team, claimed that he and several other competitors in athletics, swimming and table tennis were not disabled.

"Of the 200 Spanish athletes at Sydney at least 15 had no type of physical or mental handicap - they didn't even pass medical or psychological examinations," he wrote in the magazine Capital just days after the Paralympics ended.

He claimed FEDDI had deliberately recruited athletes who were not intellectually disabled to "win medals and gain more sponsorship".

Spain's basketball players celebrate the gold medal they won in the intellectually disabled category at Sydney 2000 only for them to be stripped of it following allegations that they had cheated

Spain had finished third overall in the medals table at Sydney 2000, behind Australia and Britain, with a total of 107 medals, 38 of them gold.

Since the scandal the team's performances have steadily declined, finishing 17th at London 2012 with 42 medals, only eight of which were gold.