Messi faces 2 yrs in jail over £3m tax fraud

LIONEL Messi and his father Jorge are to stand trial over an alleged £3.1m tax fraud.

The Argentina and Barcelona star faces three charges that carry a potential jail sentence.

Messi, 28, had thought the case against him would be dropped after he repaid £3.7million to Spanish authorities.

But a judge in charge of the case rejected a request by the public prosecutor to try only the footballer’s father.

The pair are accused of cheating the taxman out of 4.16 million euros (around £3.1million) in taxes related to Messi’s image rights between 2007 and 2009.

Jorge is said to have funnelled money into fake companies in Belize, Uruguay, Switzerland and the UK.

Messi and his father paid 5 million euros to the tax authorities as a “corrective payment” after they were formally charged in June 2013.

The court had previously ruled that Messi could not have not known about the complicated web of shell companies because his father handled his finances.