Spain's public prosecutor has
recommended a jail sentence totaling 18 months
and fines of more than 2 million euros ($2.25
million) for Lionel Messi's father Jorge in a tax fraud
case.
The prosecutor reiterated that Lionel Messi should
not have to face charges for allegedly defrauding
the state of 4.2 million euros for the years
2007-2009 as his father was in charge of his
finances, documents published on Tuesday showed.
However, the court overseeing the case already
rejected Messi's appeal last year and ruled that he
could have approved the creation of a web of shell
companies that were apparently used to evade
taxes due on income from his image rights.
Revenue had been hidden using a web of shell
companies in Uruguay, Belize, Switzerland and the
United Kingdom, according to the prosecutor's
office.
Messi and his father paid 5 million euros to the tax
authorities as a "corrective payment" after they
were formally charged in June 2013.
Lionel Messi has been resident in Barcelona since
2000 and gained Spanish citizenship in 2005.
He is 10th on Forbes Magazine's list of the world's
highest-earning athletes over the past decade with
income of $350 million.
($1 = 0.8875 euros)
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