Messi threatens legal action after being named in Panama Papers case
Lionel Messi and his family have released a statement after the Panama Papers investigation alleged their involvement in a tax avoidance scheme. The Barcelona forward and his father are accused of ‘setting up a tax fraud network’ using the Panama company 'Mega Star Enterprises':
"In regards to the news released by several media outlets in which Lionel Messi is held responsible for the creation of a company with the aim of 'putting in place a new framework of tax fraud', the Messi family wishes to make clear that Lionel Messi has not carried out any of the actions he is accused of, the accusations of designing ‘a new framework of tax fraud’ and, even, money laundering, are false and offensive.
"The Panama company referred to in the reports is a totally inactive company, which never held open current accounts and which derives from the former company structure designed by by the Messi family’s previous financial advisers, the fiscal consequences of which have already been regularised. All the income that comes from his image rights, prior to and after the procedure carried out in court, has been declared before the Spanish Treasury.
"With respect to all of that, the Messi family have given instructions to their lawyers to analyse eventual legal action against the sources that have published these claims."
In a separate case, Messi and his father are due to go on trial in late May for allegedly defrauding Spain’s tax office of 4.1 million euros between 2007 and 2009.
Along with world leaders, celebrities and other people in the sporting world, he has now been named in reports by a selection of international media, all of whom received and are still working through 11.5 million files known as the Panama Papers.
