Spain’s Supreme Court has save the career of Barcelona Superstar Lionel Messi by upholding the 21-month prison sentence in his appeal over three counts of tax fraud, a judicial source confirmed.
However, the Barcelona star’s father, Jorge Messi, has seen his sentence been reduced from 21 to 15 months with the promise of returning some of the defrauded money.
Although he was not likely to serve any jail term, This is because under Spanish law a tax prison sentence under two years can be served under probation.
Messi and his father were first sentenced to jail because of the same tax crime on the 6th of July 2016 but the family launched an appeal, Prosecutors eventually prosecuted against it asking that the Spanish Supreme Court should review the sentence last month.
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Prosecutors in last year’s case judged that Messi and his father had used tax havens in Belize and Uruguay as well as shell companies in the U.K. and Switzerland to avoid paying taxes totalling €4.1 million on earnings from image rights between 2007 and 2009.
The former world best player was also ordered to pay a fine of around €2m at the time, while his father was fined €1.5m
