Lionel Messi once spent €250,000 to avoid a 21-month prison sentence for alleged tax evasion

Lionel Messi, the Argentine football superstar, is currently playing for the MLS side Inter-Miami. The undisputed goat has played at the highest level and has stayed at the top for a very long time. With the accomplishment of the prestigious FIFA World Cup 2022, Lionel Messi has won every cup in which he has played.

Due to the financial issues, Barcelona was forced to sell Messi to PSG in 2021 where we saw him reuniting his ex-Barcelona teammate Neymar. After 2 years of playing in France he got his transfer to Beckham’s Inter-Miami, although there are still reports that he can reunite with Barcelona after his contract expires in 2025.

When Lionel Messi paid €250,000 to avoid a 21 month tax invasion.

During Messi’s Barcelona days, he was involved in a tax fraud case in 2013, and later in 2016, he was found guilty along with his father Jorge of defrauding the Spanish government of an amount of €4.2 million between 2007-2009 over the income he earned from the image rights in Belize, Britain, Switzerland, and Uruguay.

Due to being found guilty, Messi was sentenced to 21 months in prison and was ordered to pay a fine of €2 million. However, Messi was able to resolve the issue after the court decided to replace the prison sentence with a fine. After the ruling of the Spanish court, Messi was ordered to pay a fine of €250,000, and his father €180,000 to the Spanish authorities as part of the settlement.

What is the tax amount in Miami for Lionel Messi?

The world was in shock when Messi signed with Inter Miami on a 2-year deal. Messi signed a 2-year contract with a base salary of $12 million and a guaranteed compensation sum of $20.4 million. Messi will be earning an absolutely staggering amount of $55 million during his time with Miami. He will also be able to generate revenue from Adidas, Apple, and Fanatics, and receive a percentage of Inter Miami stock when he retires.

However, he has to pay a huge sum of amount as tax including the “jock tax” after the signing of that contract. As per sports entrepreneur Andrew Petcash, out of Messi’s $55 million earning, $20.3 million would be designated towards Federal tax, $1.64 million for jock tax and $1.29 million is for FICA/Medicare. After all taxes Messi would still be earning an amount of $31.4 million.

In MLS, Messi’s compensation has become the highest among all other players, followed by Toronto’s Lorenzo Insigne ($15.4 million) and Chicago’s Xherdan Shaqiri ($8.1 million). The 36-year-old has now become the highest-paid athlete on US soil.

With such huge amount in his bag, there will be a lot of monitoring done by the US tax officials all the time. Drop you views and tell us Whether Inter-Miami paid the correct amount to Lionel Messi?