REPORT: Barcelona presidents say Messi paid his taxes

           
Barcelona's current and former presidents set aside their differences and defended Lionel Messi against allegations of tax fraud on Thursday, a case that experts say could carry a prison sentence for the Argentina star.                         

A Spanish state prosecutor filed a fraud complaint on Wednesday alleging that Messi and his father Jorge avoided paying 4 million euros ($5.3 million) in back taxes on earnings from image rights during 2006-2009 by using illegal overseas tax havens.                       

Joan Laporta, who was club president during the period covered by the complaint, said he is "convinced that neither Leo nor his father have committed any infraction."                             

Laporta said that Messi and his family lacked the financial know-how necessary to have set up the network of shell companies and tax havens in countries including Belize and Uruguay described in the prosecutor's complaint.                        

Messi has denied any wrongdoing and his lawyers issued a statement on Thursday saying that he "has always punctually attended to his fiscal obligations."                  

Current president Sandro Rosell later said the club has no "doubts about (Messi's) innocence", making for a rare moment of alignment with Laporta following the bitter feud the two former colleagues have waged since Rosell left Laporta's board in 2005.                                    

The case was submitted at the court in Gava, near the Mediterranean coastal town where Messi lives. A judge at the court must accept the prosecutor's complaint before charges can be brought against Messi and his father. A court official told The Associated Press that a decision should come in a matter of days.                       

If found guilty and barring an out-of-court deal with the tax office, Messi and his father could face 2-6 years in jail, according to Professor Sandalio Gomez, a sports finance analyst at the IESE Business School.                         

In the complaint, state prosecutor Raquel Amado alleges that from 2006-09 Messi "obtained significant revenue derived from the transfer to third parties of his image rights, income which should have been taxed."                               

Gomez told the AP that the prosecutor's complaint appeared to be strong, while noting that hiring or establishing a company - even overseas - to manage players' image rights was legal as long as they met their tax burdens in Spain.                        

Laporta, who was Barcelona's president from 2003-10 and is considering running against Rosell in 2016 after his foray into politics, said that under his mandate Messi directly controlled 100 percent of earnings from his image rights.                               

But, Laporta said, Barcelona did follow a common practice of paying 15% of Messi's salary to a company that controlled his image rights. He said that he didn't remember where that company was based.                             

Rosell said that the club continues to pay Messi 15% of his salary to a company that manages his image rights.                             

Messi is not the first athlete to be investigated in Spain for taxes.                     


AP


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