http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1682711-lionel-messi-reportedly-paid-eur10m-in-back-taxes-in-wake-of-fraud-investigation

Perhaps in an attempt to avoid any further legal ramifications from charges of tax evasion levied against him, Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi has reportedly paid €10M in back taxes. From Alex Duff of Bloomberg:

Lionel Messi, the four-time world soccer player of the year who’s being investigated for alleged tax evasion, paid 10 million euros ($13.1 million) to correct his tax situation for 2010 and 2011, La Vanguardia reported.

The payment to Spain’s tax authority could mean Messi is seeking to settle the judicial probe he is involved in relating to 2007, 2008 and 2009, the Barcelona-based newspaper said, citing unidentified people familiar with the case.

Public prosecutor Raquel Amado filed a complaint June 12 that said Messi and his father had evaded 4.2 million euros of taxes by routing income from endorsement deals with Adidas AG (ADS), PepsiCo Inc. (PEP), Danone SA (BN) and his club, Barcelona, through companies in the U.K. and Switzerland to Uruguay.

According to the La Vanguardia report (via ESPN),

\"Messi seeks a deal that would allow him to clarify what occurred over the three years in question.\"

Messi previously denied any wrongdoing via Facebook

\"We have just known through the media about the claim filed by the Spanish tax authorities. We are surprised about those news, because we have never committed any infringement. We have always fulfilled all our tax obligations, following the advices of our Tax Consultants who will take care of clarifying this situation.\"

However, it would appear he\'s changed his tune given his reported payment of back taxes. According to Forbes, Messi earns $41.3 million per year, making him the 10th-highest-paid athlete in the world. He made $21 million from his endorsements last year and clears $20 million annually from his Barcelona contract.

Messi was once again amazing for Barcelona this past season, scoring 60 goals and adding 14 assists in all competitions. He also set the (somewhat disputed) world record for goals in a calendar year for club and country with 91 in 2012.

Since first playing for Barcelona\'s senior squad in 2004, he\'s accumulated a ridiculous array of silverware, with six La Liga titles, two Copa Del Rey victories and three Champions League titles.

Individually, he\'s won four Ballon d\'Or trophies, given to the best player in the world, and is widely considered the finest footballer alive today. He hasn\'t had nearly as much success with Argentina, however, and many folks will want to see him win a World Cup, perhaps in 2014, before entering him into the conversation as the best player of all time.

For now, however, Messi isn\'t worried about personal achievements or titles as much as resolving his legal issues.

Tax payed ....... end of story.

He sounds like a politician fleeing the taxes and making fun of gouvernement's :D

With the massive leak the other day, FIFA and assorted players, including Messi, now have new questions facing them.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/panama-papers-how-soccer-has-become-enmeshed-in-offshore-world-1.2595555

Yep but it re mains same case, it happened between 2007 and 2009 and actually financial advicers of Messi family got sacked. The timing of these always really weird but those extra sportive issues Barca are usually facing in Spain doesnt affect much their players on the pitch even the ban made them stronger last year.
Champions always answer on the pitch, hope they do.

Messi signed these papers that are connected to this Panama papers incident in July 23rd, 2013. Only three years ago. If Messi started laundering money in 2007, then he has been doing so consciously for the last 9 years. He can claim innocence all he wants, but there is no way a man doesn't understand or care about what is happening to his money. He knows just as well as anyone else what his father had been doing with his money.

Blame the people who made football a money sport. Not the players.

@Joze

Let's not blame someone for laundering money, let's blame the people they earned their money from. Fantastic logic.

You fail to get the meaning from what I am saying or I was way too bored to explain myself.

If such amounts of money are beeing given to players expect such things to happen

If we give players a lot of money, we should expect them to become criminals.

I still don't get it.

Can't say I really care.

Really sad that you have to pay taxses on your labour.
Should be payed on what you own and saved not what you earn.

Messi is not selfish player but he is sure a greedy one . You make 10s of millions of dollars and still decide not to pay small portion your taxes some and hide money somewhere far in Panama thinking that sht will never float out the bottom .

@Salahadin "Really sad that you have to pay taxses on your labour."

What do you mean ? Care to elaborate because i think you just said that people should not pay taxes ?

I understand evading taxes when you are in poverty or very close to it. But when you can afford to pay all your taxes, no matter how massive they are, and still have hundreds of millions in the bank and live a lavish lifestyle for three to four generations... I don't see why you can't just pay your damn taxes. I'm not just talking about Messi here. All rich people who evade taxes confuse me.

Cant really criticize him on the field, lets judge him out of the field....

Panama papers were financed by Georges Sorros the most greedy j£w ever and a big fan of the new world order, the ennemy of cultures and nations...He is financing the FEMEN, And extrémist groups arround the world, got 10 % of the média in Europe.
The real question for me is why financing this while all his friends are war criminals and children abusers, make researches about Sorros, my supposition is that those Panama papers Will be used agaisnt Poutine the main ennemy of the actual imperialism dictatory. The fact that he helped Syria against Daech while they spent years financing them and training them is making the neo conservatists sick.
Well I may be confusing anyone and surely not clear but suddenly those Panama papers appear and people discover that rich people doesnt pay taxes, the public opinion is yet to be manipulated something is being prepared, when I saw all média posting those papers the first thing I did is to Check who financed them, knowing How it works in upper classes there is no coincidence.

For Messi, here in Europe you are innocent until the justice proved you wrong, in US its the opposite so im not judging him before I know the responsability of each of his family, we cant choose our fathers and when we are a footballing Genius we concentrate on field and training.

Your bias is showing tiki lol

Anyway. here in the USA, we take leaked documents as fact, because that's the only time we get full truth from our government and other massive figures. Think Wikileaks, Snowden, etc.

If Messi is innocent of any of this, I'd be beyond shocked. He's already been guilty of a similar crime, and this new information seems par for the course with him.

I would be also Shoked if his family is innocent too, but here in Europe no one is guilty before being judged...

20 top football players are linked to those papers, the clubs most impacted are United, Madrid and Barca. If justice could be applied on upper classes 90% of them would be in jail, see Walt Disney didnt influenced my vision on the world I see it as ugly as it is actually, I dont think wanting a better world is wrong but thinking that it is actually is a little bit naive specially in countries singing democraty while there isnt.
Im not bias, I just hate when we suddenly' got offended by things that are actually working for decades just because média ordered us to, the whole world went supporting France in the attacks How many supported Mali, Turkey, Palestine, Tunisia, Yémen and the list is long...
No messi '´ might " be tax frauding, the names of Modric, Rooney and others are linked and im the biased one ? Lets find them all and not just find one or two thrown by media to people, all French media owners are tax frauding and part of the biggest weapon dealers in the world... In US its worse so when suddenly I Hear moral lessons I wonder if its for some hidden reason, and then I discover that Sorros is behind it, sure Messi it wasnt just to put Messi in the Spotlight but there is a reason behind those papers, and we are yet to discover it.

Debating if its good pr bad to not pay your taxes doesnt really interest me, when 30% of our revenue of our nation goes to pay a debt that people like Sorros make sure it keeps growing, paying taxes doesnt have any symbolical importance, if I could avoid paying taxes that will go into a small community of criminals, I would do it.

@marcusPeople that work no. People that own yes.
That is what i think is right.