Lionel Messi will not spend any time in prison despite being found guilty of tax fraud after agreeing to pay an increased fine.
Messi and his father Jorge were found guilty in July 2016 of three counts of defrauding the Spanish tax authority out of £3.59m – 4.1 million euros – by hiding earnings from image rights in offshore accounts in Uruguay and Belize from 2007 to 2009.
He was given 21 months in prison, but Spanish law sees all first time offenders given suspended sentences if the jail term is under two years.
Messi has therefore been spending the time on probation, but now the remainder of his sentence will be scrapped as he has agreed to pay an increased fine, rather than have the remaining months against his name.
The forward’s sentence had previously been upheld on appeal in May, but now the unlikely possibility that he might have been forced to spend time behind bars has now been removed entirely.
Messi will pay 250,000 euros – the equivalent of £221,000 – while his father will pay 180,000 euros.
Earlier this week, Messi signed a new £500,000 a week deal with FC Barcelona until 2021 – meaning he only has to work three days to pay off his debt to the Spanish authorities.
