Soccer star Messi sentenced to jail for tax evasion

A Barcelona court on Friday July 6, 2016 sentenced Lionel Messi and his father Jorge Horacio Messi to suspended sentences of 21 months in prison each for tax fraud.

Messi will also have to pay about 2.1 million euros ($2.3 million) in fines for evading taxes between 2007 and 2009, according to an e-mailed statement Wednesday from the court in Barcelona that sentenced him.

Messi’s father Jorge Messi was handed a 21-month jail sentence and a $1.7 million fine tax fraud, though also like his son he won’t serve time as he also doesn’t have a criminal record.

At one stage, the Barcelona player was about to escape any charges as the Spanish revenue service initially accepted that he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing, and instead charged his father.

Sentences less than 24 months in Spain, which to most of us is simply referred to as 2 years, are typically carried out through probation, which means the Messi will inevitably be able to maintain their careers as usual.

The income related to Messi’s image rights that was allegedly hidden includes endorsement deals with Danone, Adidas, Pepsi-Cola, Procter & Gamble or the Kuwait Food Company. At his trial he said he “signed what [Jorge Messi] told me to sign because I trusted my father”.

They can appeal the decision to Spain’s Supreme Court and that is what the pair’s lawyers indicated on Wednesday they would, saying they felt confident an appeal would succeed.

Following an exhaustively bad summer season on the tails of the finals at Copa America, at any rate, Messi can confidently relax, understanding that he’s well versed as playing the courts good as playing defense.

Spanish prosecutors, however, countered that even though Messi was mostly unfamiliar with tax issues, evidence indicated he could have known and consented to the tax structures. A spokeswoman for the court confirmed that Messi, 29, was unlikely to be imprisoned. “It’s like a crime boss”.

The long-running case in a Catalan court relates to a scheme to avoid paying £3.4m of tax on the Barcelona superstar’s image rights. The club “considers that the player is in no way criminally responsible with regards to the facts underlined in this case”.

The sentence is not the first time Barcelona’s players have become tangled in tax evasion scandals.