A handout picture released by Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy on December 13, 2016 shows Barcelona’s Argentinian forward Lionel Messi (C-L) holding six-year-old Afghan boy Murtaza Ahmadi (C-R) in Doha, upon the team’s arrival to play a friendly match against Saudi Arabian side Al-Ahli. An Afghan boy who became an internet sensation after pictures of him wearing an improvised Lionel Messi football shirt went viral finally got to meet his superstar idol. / AFP
Spain’s public prosecutor has agreed to substitute Lionel Messi’s suspended 21-month prison sentence for tax fraud with a fine.
The Barcelona superstar was given the jail term last July after being found guilty – alongside his father Jorge – of three counts of tax fraud.
It was ruled that Messi, between 2007 and 2009, defrauded Spain of 4.1million euros relating to earnings from image rights.
An appeal against the sentence was rejected by the Spanish Supreme Court in May. However, Spanish news agency EFE reports that the public prosecutor has agreed to substitute the sentence for a fine of 255,000 euros.
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