Barcelona star Lionel Messi will appeal and vowed to clear his name after a court in Spain on Wednesday sentenced him and his father to 21 months in jail for tax fraud, the player’s lawyers said.
The prison sentences are likely to be suspended, as is common in Spain for first offenses for non-violent crimes carrying a sentence of less than two years.
The Argentine’s lawyers feel an appeal would eventually succeed in persuading the court that Messi and his father have behaved correctly, the player’s representatives said in a statement.
Photo: Reuters
“The most recent laws from the Supreme Court on the matter that concerns us would seem to prove the argument of the defense,” Messi’s lawyers Enrique Bacigalupo and Javier Sanchez-Vera said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Barcelona court had found the Argentina international and his father Jorge Horacio Messi guilty of using companies in Belize, Britain, Switzerland and Uruguay to avoid paying taxes on 4.16 million euros (US$4.61 million) of Messi’s income earned from his image rights from 2007 to 2009.
The income related to Messi’s image rights that was allegedly hidden includes endorsement deals with Danone, Adidas, Pepsi-Cola, Procter & Gamble and the Kuwait Food Co.
The court found Lionel Messi and his father, who has managed his son’s affairs since he was a child, guilty of tax fraud and ruled that for each of those three years they should serve a sentence of seven months.
Lionel Messi was also fined 2.09 million euros, while his father was fined 1.6 million euros.
They can appeal the decision to the Spanish Supreme Court and that is what the pair’s lawyers indicated on Wednesday they would do, saying they felt confident an appeal would succeed.
Lionel Messi told the court during the four-day trial that wrapped up on Monday that he trusted his father with his finances and “knew nothing” about how his wealth was managed.
Prosecutors had asked for Lionel Messi to be absolved, arguing there was no evidence that the player was aware of how his income was managed.
The state attorney representing tax authorities in the trial, Mario Maza, said he found it unlikely that Lionel Messi knew nothing about the situation.
The court agreed, arguing in its ruling that Messi “had decided to remain in ignorance.”
“Despite all the opportunities available to the player to show interest in how his rights were managed, he did not,” the court added.
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