A court has upheld a sentence handed down on Argentina and Barcelona star Lionel Messi, prompting comments from a tax advisor about such cases.

A tax lawyer has warned about the dangers of “pushing boundaries” in complying with rules after a court upheld a 21-month jail term handed last year to Barcelona and Argentina footballer Lionel Messi.
Messi, considered to be one of the most talented footballers of all time, was sentenced along with his father, Jorge, last year of defrauding Spain of €4.1 million (around $4.6 million) in taxes. Jorge Messi’s term was reduced because he paid some of the taxes. In Spain, prison terms of less than two year can be served under probation (source: BBC). The matter now returns to the Barcelona court that meted out the original punishment. Messi denied wrongdoing.

"Messi’s case highlights the importance of structuring image rights arrangements properly,” Miles Dean, founding partner of Milestone International Tax Consultants, said in a statement about the Messi case.

“There is no doubt that a player such as Messi has extremely valuable image rights and that it is possible to structure their exploitation in a tax efficient manner,” he said. 

“However, one might argue that he earns so much from his Barcelona salary that there is no need to go to the lengths that he and his father did to deprive the tax authorities,” he said, adding: “Lest we forget that Spain is bankrupt and the rule of law isn't adhered to in the same was as say the UK - one could equally argue that he's been made an example of.”

Messi is by no means the only footballer and sports organisation to get into trouble over financial dealings. In 2014, Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness, a former member of West Germany's victorious World Cup team of 1974, was jailed by a German court for tax fraud said to have cost €28.5 million. 

Football was rocked by financial scandal in other ways. For example, FIFA, the global body overseeing the World Cup tournament, was accused of being riddled with corruption and there were a number of arrests at its Switzerland headquarters in 2015.

A free transfer involving an English Premier League footballer in 2011 is said to have sparked a probe by HMRC into English football clubs Newcastle United and West Ham United. Officials raided the stadiums of both teams in late April. (That matter is ongoing and this news organisation will update on developments in due course.)