Lionel Messi sentenced to 21 months in prison after being found guilty of tax fraud

LIONEL MESSI

Lionel Messi sentenced
to 21 months in prison
after being found guilty
of tax fraud
Lionel Messi and his father Jorge can serve
their sentence under probation CREDIT: REX
By Telegraph Sport , AND REUTERS
6 JULY 2016 • 12:06PM
ionel Messi has been sentenced to
21 months in prison after a court
in Barcelona found him guilty of
three counts of tax fraud, a statement
from the court said on Wednesday.
The court also sentenced the Argentine
soccer player's father, Jorge, to 21
months in prison for the same three
crimes. The sentence can be appealed
through the Spanish supreme court,
the statement said.
However, under Spanish law a prison
sentence under two years can be
served under probation, meaning
Messi and his father are unlikely to go
to jail.
The court ordered Messi to pay a fine
of around 2 million euros
(£1.7million) and his father to pay 1.5
million euros for the crimes.
During his testimony, given last
month, Messi denied any knowledge
of wrongdoing .
“I knew nothing about the money. I
just concentrated on playing football. I
trusted my father”, the FC Barcelona
player said when asked about the
complex series of shell companies
which allegedly helped the Messis
conceal earnings on the sale of his
image rights.
Messi appeared in court last month
Asked in the Barcelona court if he
knew that the money went from
Switzerland to Britain before being
transferred to companies the Messis
set up in Uruguay and Belize, the
player replied: “No, I didn’t know that.
I knew we signed agreements with
various sponsors who paid x amount
of money, and that I had to do
adverts, photographs and all that stuff.
But I had no idea where the money
was going.”