Lionel Messi and his father Jorge Messi is not under fire as they were charged with tax fraud. The Argentina and Barcelona football player was found guilty for tax evasion along with his father. Lionel Messi is bound to be sentenced 21 months of prison in Spain.
BBC reported that Lionel Messi landed a jail time as he defraud his taxes in Spain back in 2007 and 2009. It was mentioned that his fraudulent charges amounted to $4.5 million. Aside from these fees, he would also need to pay a couple of million euros for the penalties.
Lionel and Jorge Messi were both found guilty for three counts of tax fraud as per the Barcelona court. Though the previous reports mentioned that he landed 21 months of jail time, it was mentioned that Lionel Messi and his father would no longer be sent to jail.
2nd highest paid athlete in the world Lionel Messi was found guilty of tax evasion https://t.co/YRTnYqHeio pic.twitter.com/y6qLIOpLSi
— Forbes (@Forbes) July 7, 2016
The Barcelona court however fined Lionel Messi around 2 million euros while his father was fined 1.5 million euros. The court decided of fining them instead of letting them serve jail time as both Lionel and Jorge doesn't have any criminal records in the past.
"I understand these laws as much as I understand Chinese," Jorge Messi said in a court proceeding as reported by IBT. "I didn't have any knowledge of the laws and simply said 'yes' or 'no' to the proposals presented to me. My intention was to make life easier for my son, to accompany him and to allow him to focus on football. Eventually, we needed legal and accounting help."
As for Lionel Messi's case it was mentioned that the Spanish revenue service nearly acquitted his case after it was mentioned that he was unaware of what was happening. Though Lionel Messi nearly gained pardon, his father will still be facing charged. It was later on decided that the state prosecutor still pushed for the charges against Messi and his father.
