In a statement, the court also said that the sentence can be appealed through the Spanish supreme court. Under Spanish law, a tax prison sentence under two years can be served under probation, meaning Messi and his father are unlikely to go to jail.
The court has also ordered Messi to pay a fine of about €2 million, while his father was dealt a €1.5m fine for the tax evasion.
The court had been hearing a case brought by prosecutors who maintain that Messi and his father, Jorge, used tax havens in Belize and Uruguay as well as shell companies in the U.K. and Switzerland to avoid paying taxes totalling €4.1m on earnings from image rights from 2007 to 2009.
