Messi given 21 months for tax fraud, won’t go to prison

In court last month, Messi admitted that he signed many documents without reading their contents and that he visited a notary’s office to setup a company to handle his finances without really understanding what was going on.

Argentine professional footballer, Lionel Messi, and his father Jorge Messi were handed a 21-month prison term for three counts of tax fraud by a Barcelona court on Wednesday. According to the report by the Los Angeles Times, “Under Spanish law, sentences of less than two years for first offenses are suspended, meaning that neither man will go to jail”.

The court also fined Messi 2 million euros and his father 1.5 million euros.

He however said he had no knowledge he was partaking in any wrongdoing or defrauding the Spanish state.

Messi’s management company said later on Wednesday that Messi and his father would appeal the sentences.

“The information that the accused avoided having was, in reality, within his reach via trustworthy and accessible sources”. They also made a voluntary €5 million “corrective payment”, equal to the alleged unpaid tax plus interest, in August 2013.

Forbes ranked Messi as the second-highest paid athlete on the planet, earning an estimated $81.4 million previous year through his salary and various endorsement deals.

Barcelona football club, of which Messi is the leading goal scorer of all time in all competitions, said in a statement on its website following the ruling that it considers the player to be free of criminal liability.

The club said that it “considers that the player (.) is in no way criminally responsible with regards to the facts underlined in this case”.

But he has lost three Copa America finals with Argentina – in 2007, 2015 and 2016 – and announced his global retirement after last month’s penalty shootout loss in the final to Chile.

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