Barcelona football star Messi sentenced to 21 months in prison for tax fraud

MADRID (REUTERS) – Barcelona football star Lionel Messi has been sentenced to 21 months in prison after a court in Barcelona found him guilty of three counts of tax fraud, a statement from the court said on Wednesday (July 6).

The court also sentenced the Argentine football player’s father, Jorge, to 21 months in prison for the same three crimes. The sentence can be appealed through the Spanish supreme court, the statement said.

However, under Spanish law a prison sentence under two years can be served under probation, meaning Messi and his father are unlikely to go to jail.

The court ordered Messi to pay a fine of around 2 million euros (S$2.99 million) and his father to pay 1.5 million euros for the crimes.

I'm ready to bet $1000 that he won't go to prison. Or, at the very most, he will spend one night behind bars in a private cell watching HDTV and having a nice dinner he would order.

[quote author=artyarson link=topic=105133.msg704271#msg704271 date=1469142984]
I'm ready to bet $1000 that he won't go to prison. Or, at the very most, he will spend one night behind bars in a private cell watching HDTV and having a nice dinner he would order.
[/quote]

Why do you say that? Do you think that they'll just pay the money and go home, I thought they would have to do the jail time and also pay the fine.

I wonder how these governments are getting all of these famous and wealthy people, but you never hear stories about the regular people who have been behind on taxes for like 5 or 10 years with debts reaching 50K or on average in debt by 10K or more.