Family denies Messi’s alleged involvement in tax scheme

BARCELONA: Barcelona forward Lionel Messi’s family has denied Spanish media reports that arose following the leak of the ‘Panama papers’ that said he was involved in a tax evasion scheme.

Governments across the world began investigating possible financial wrongdoing by the rich and powerful on Monday after a leak of four decades of documents from a Panamanian law firm that specialised in setting up offshore companies.

While holding money in offshore companies is not illegal, Messi, 28, was on Sunday accused by Spanish newspaper El Confidencial of creating a company with the aim of evading tax.

His family issued a statement on Monday, denying allegations it said were published by various media organisations that Messi had created a corporate structure aimed at “setting up a tax fraud network”.

It added: “The Messi family wish to make it clear Lionel Messi has not carried out any of the acts of which he is accused in the stories and that the allegations of him having designed a tax evasion project are false and injurious, as are those relating to the creation of a money laundering network.”

His club has given Messi’s family their backing. “Barcelona wishes to express the club trusts the arguments the Messi family has made public and that from the moment the documents linking Leo Messi with ‘the Panama papers’ were made public, Barcelona have shown their support and solidarity to the player and all his family,” the European champions said in a statement.

“The club has put all its judicial, fiscal and administrative means at the disposition of the family should they need to clarify their position and repute in this case,” the statement added.