With the star striker, Lionel Messi’s retirement from the world of international football and his sentence to 21 months in prison by the Barcelona court, there arises a flicker of doubt in the mind of many, could these two events be related?
Let’s take a brief look at the facts around his retirement:
- Lionel Messi’s retirement was claimed to be a result of the loss of the Argentina national team in the Copa America 2016 final for the third time in a row. But is this really enough reason to retire from the sport of your passion, and that when he knows that he is undoubtedly considered the best living striker across the globe?
- Taking into regard his inability to lead the Argentina team to a victory, Messi’s success with the Barcelona club remains unmatched. Just think about it, is losing one single final enough reason to quit your passion and job of your dreams?(taking into regard that the team was excellent enough to qualify for the final in the past years as well with his help)
What’s more shocking is that yesterday, a few days after his prison sentence, Messi told an Argentinian Newspaper that he revoked his declaration to retire from international football and would be back in the team in November to play for La Albiceleste.
- Lionel Messi and his father Jorge Messi were both sentenced to 21 months in prison by a Barcelona court for evading the payment of 4 million euros in taxes
- It is rumoured that they won’t be spending any time behind bars due to the nonviolent nature of this criminal offence.
- Messi’s lawyers also claim that he had no knowledge of the tax evasion schemes as he didn’t handle any of his financial matters and instead focuses on his performance in the field.
- But take a look at this, the Barcelona player was set to avoid facing any charges, as the Spanish revenue service initially accepted that he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing and instead pressed all charges against his father back in 2013.
- In the three year gap that followed until now, would he have truly remained oblivious to his financial matters and transactions?
- Following this, in October 2014 the state prosecutor decided to continue with the charges, and during June’s court case its representative, Mario Maza, said that the Argentina captain’s claims of not understanding how the system worked were not acceptable, as even children knew that taxes had to be paid in full and I can’t help but to agree.
We all know the amount of worldwide respect and support that Messi has gathered in the mere days following his retirement and I can’t help but to wonder, could it have any role to play in the significantly short prison sentence that he has been issued by the Spanish court? And if indeed he was sent to jail, there would undoubtedly be throngs of people protesting for his freedom and supporting his stance, not only in Spain, but worldwide.
These events have led to a lot of questions waiting to be answered.
- Could dropping out of the Argentina National team have been instigated by demands from Barcelona?
- It is impossible that he had no knowledge of the amount that he would be fined and the crime that he had committed despite his claims, so was his abrupt retirement actually a calculative move in order to save himself from further or more severe punishment?
- Even the fine that was imposed upon him and his father could be considered low in comparison to amount of tax payment that they skilfully avoided paying, was the court’s decree too influenced by his retirement and the mass of public support that it gathered for him?
The fact remains that Messi’s retirement and prison sentence taking place in the span of only a week can’t just be a coincidence.After all, who gets away with a crime like this and a prison sentence with mere probation? Unless of course, he is Lionel Messi. The fact that he is considering a return to the Argentinian National team despite his earlier declaration of retirement from international football only helps to confirm our suspicions. We can only hope to uncover the missing link behind this story in the near future.
