Lionel Messi and his father Jorge have been summoned by a Spanish court for questioning in relation to alleged tax fraud totalling nearly €4 million. A court in the town of Gava near Barcelona accepted a state prosecutor's complaint and the pair have been asked to make themselves present before the court on September 17.
This questioning will be a key part of the process of determining whether or not the pair have a case to answer for. The alleged fraud relates to Messi's failure to pay the correct amount of tax on earnings from his image rights between 2007 and 2009.
Messi and his father are suspected of using companies in Belize and Uruguay to sell the player's image rights, avoiding Spanish tax.
After the allegation was first made against Messi earlier this year, he responded by posting the following message on Facebook: "We have never committed any infringement. We have always fulfilled all our tax obligations, following the advices of our tax consultants who will take care of clarifying this situation."
]The Independent]
