Breaking News : Lionel Messi sent to jail [video]

A Barcelona court has found Barcelona forward Lionel Messi, and his father, Jorge Horacio Messi, guilty of three counts of tax fraud and has sentenced them to 21 months in prison -- although neither are likely to serve any jail time.

In a statement, the court also said that the sentence can be appealed through the Spanish supreme court. Under Spanish law, a 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 has been hearing a case brought by prosecutors who maintain that Messi and his father, Jorge, used tax havens in Belize and Uruguay, and shell companies in the UK and Switzerland, to avoid paying taxes totalling €4.1m on earnings from image rights from 2007 to 2009.

The prosecutors had called for jail sentences for both of the accused and the court decided to hand out such a punishment. 

Both Messi have denied any wilful wrongdoing, with Lionel admitting in court last month that he signed many documents without reading their contents, and visited a notary's office to go through with setting up a company to handle his finances without understanding what was going on.

At one point, 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.However another sector of the government, the state prosecutor (Abogado del Estado) decided to continue with the charges, and during June's court case its representative Mario Maza said that the Argentina captain's claims that he just did not understand how the system worked were not acceptable as even children knew that taxes had to be paid in full.

When news of the investigation first broke in summer 2013, the Messi paid over €5m in arrears and extra charges. They are also believed to have paid €10m in taxes due on the image rights income for the years 2010 and 2011.

In February, Messi's teammate, Javier Mascherano, was given a one-year prison sentence for not properly paying his taxes. The sentence was deferred for a two-year span after his legal team rejected the option to pay a new €280,000 ($312,000) fine, which they considered excessive.