BREAKING: Lionel Messi handed 21 month jail term in Spain

WINNER: Messi nets elusive prize

LIONEL MESSI has been handed a 21 month jail term for tax evasion following his trial in Spain.

Dad Jorge Messi was also handed a jail term after their Barcelona trial which accused the pair of defrauding Spain of €4.1m between 2007 and 2009.

They also face millions of euros in fines after it was discovered they had used tax havens in Belize and Uruguay to conceal earnings from image rights.

The pair are unlikely to see the inside of a cell, however, as prison terms under two years in Spain can be served under probation.

They were both found guilty of tax evasion on Wednesday by the Barcelona court.

Lionel had claimed he knew nothing about hte management affairs, adding that his father managed everything.

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Laurence Dollimore

Laurence Dollimore is a Spanish-speaking, NCTJ-trained journalist with almost a decade’s worth of experience.
The London native has a BA in International Relations from the University of Leeds and and an MA in the same subject from Queen Mary University London.
He earned his gold star diploma in multimedia journalism at the prestigious News Associates in London in 2016, before immediately joining the Olive Press at their offices on the Costa del Sol.
After a five-year stint, Laurence returned to the UK to work as a senior reporter at the Mail Online, where he remained for two years before coming back to the Olive Press as Digital Editor in 2023.
He continues to work for the biggest newspapers in the UK, who hire him to investigate and report on stories in Spain.
These include the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Mail Online, Mail on Sunday and The Sun and Sun Online.
He has broken world exclusives on everything from the Madeleine McCann case to the anti-tourism movement in Tenerife.

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