I see the Spammers are getting the White Elephant pitch ready for their usual standards... please log in to view this image
Lionel Messi and his father have been sentenced to 21 months in prison for tax evasion, but are unlikely to actually go to jail, apparently. The Spanish justice system allows those given less than 2 years to serve it as probation. It looks like they'll just have to pay a fine, which will be €2m for the player and €1.5m for his dad.
Of course any normal person convicted of fraud would immediately be sacked from their job. Chance of this happening to Messi - zero.
Barcelona have already dealt with this happening, almost exactly. This is the second time this year that one of their Argentinian players has been convicted of tax fraud, rather bizarrely. Mascherano got a similar punishment in January.
So you are telling me that the sum of : 1. the tax evaded 2. penalty costs (fines, interest on #1 ) 3. taxman legal costs (assuming loser pays all in Spain) comes to €3.5m in total ??
The reports are a little difficult to decipher, but I believe that the fine is just to stop them going to jail. The tax evaded, interest on it, costs and penalties for evasion are all on top of the €3.5m, I think. They've already paid €5m and that was back in 2013.
Not quite "get out of jail free" , but not too far off it. I suspect a high profile prison sentence would soon see swift and accurate tax settlements en-masse by La Liga players.
I would have thought it would be challenging enough to find things to spend their honest money on, let alone try and withhold tax so they can have more!
A rare sighting of something that could be mistaken for common sense at The FA: http://www.thefa.com/news/governance/2016/jul/tottenham-chelsea-fines-reduced-050716
Guy I can't spell joined ManU yesterday. 1. Maureen also said yesterday that Rooney is not considered a midfielder (I wish he'd told Hodgson), so which of the many United forwards are now not going to play? 2. The transfer was for an 'undisclosed fee'. But I thought that a listed company couldn't spend that sort of money and not declare it in the accounts?
On paper Man Utd signing Mkhitaryan should be worrying - but then again, this is Moronho we're talking about, so it's not out of the question that he'll be neutered when he's deployed as a defensive midfielder...
For a plc, it may well have to explicitly declared in the appropriate accounts. So for those that are interested, you may get the value in the end.
Surely common sense would also be to reduce Dembele's ban to reflect the fact that several similar incidents have occurred with players suffering no penalty at all.
He'd be worth a lot less if he was locked up. Shame it's never going to happen. You're right about Barca's reasoning, though. They'd lose a lot and gain nothing by sacking him.
I think Chelsea should be fined an extra 50 mil for stiring it all up before the game!....and that certain Spaniard deported!
