It’s being reported today that Javier Mascherano has been sentenced to a year in prison.
The Barcelona defensive midfielder-cum-centre-half has indeed been sentenced to a year in prison, but this happened all the way back at the start of December 2015, having plead guilty to charges of tax fraud.
The Argentine was also ordered to pay a fine of €815,000.
The reason some outlets are today repeating the news that he’s been sentenced to 12 months in prison is that he’s currently in court, trying to avoid serving a minute of that prison time.
Spanish law does not require that people handed sentences of fewer than two years actually serve any of their sentence in prison, unless the convictions pertain to a violent offence.
Avoiding the prison term will likely involve payment in full of the fine imposed last month, as well as interest. Somehow we think he’ll be able to stump up the cash.
To summarise, Javier Mascherano was sentenced to a year in prison a month ago, has not yet served any time in a jail or a prison, and that is very unlikely to change after his lawyers finish up in that Spanish courtroom today.
