Barcelona star Lionel Messi on
Friday moved closer to facing trial
over alleged tax fraud after a
Spanish court rejected his appeal
against being named in the case
and ordered the probe to go ahead.
The Argentine forward and his father, Jorge Horacio
Messi, were accused last year of not paying €4.16
million in tax on earnings from the player's image
rights from 2007-2009 through the creation of a web
of shell companies in Belize and Uruguay.
Both Messi and his father, who is also the player's
manager, denied wrongdoing and pointed the finger
instead at a former agent of the player when they
were quizzed at a court in Gava, the Barcelona
suburb where the player lives, in September 2013.
Based on the Messis' testimony, public prosecutors
called for the case to be shelved.
But the court in July ruled that there was "sufficient
evidence" to believe Messi "could have known and
consented" to the creation of a fictitious corporate
structure to avoid paying taxes on income from his
image rights and ordered the prosecution of the
case to go ahead.
Messi's lawyers appealed but on Friday the court
said it had "dismissed entirely" their petition and
upheld its earlier ruling. "In this type of crime, it is
not necessary for someone to have complete
knowledge of all the accounting and business
operations nor the exact quantity, rather it is
sufficient to be aware of the designs to commit
fraud and consent to them," the court said in its
ruling.
Messi and his father have five days to appeal the
court's ruling.
If the court rejects that appeal, prosecutors will
have to formally ask the court to send him to trial --
a move which Messi's legal team can again appeal.
If the court agrees there is enough evidence to
send the player to trial, it will then set a date. Messi
can appeal this decision as well.
The player's father made a payment of five million
euros in August 2013 to cover alleged unpaid taxes,
plus interests. That was thought likely to
significantly reduce any sentence should they be
found guilty.
Messi, 27, won the Ballon d'Or title four times
between 2009 and 2012, but lost his crown last
year to Real Madrid's Portuguese star Cristiano
Ronaldo.
He is the fourth richest sportsperson in the world,
according to a ranking published in June by Forbes
business magazine.
The player moved up to fourth from 10th place in
just a year with an annual income of just under $65
million, it said.
Between 2007 and 2009 he earned more than
€10.17 million in image rights, including contracts
with Adidas, Danone, Pepsi-Cola, Procter and
Gamble, and the Kuwait Food Company.
Spain has been cracking down on tax evasion as it
fights to repair the country's public finances after
the collapse of a decade-long property bubble in
2008 tipped the economy into a deep double-dip
recession.
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