Another record falls to the Argentinian maestro, but he may not be so proud of this one. Ouch.
Lionel Messi's tax affairs have been almost as well publicised as his on-field brilliance this past 12 months and now details have emerged in the Spanish press about just how much the Barca star has had to pay this year.
According to Spanish paper
La Vanguardia, because of unpaid image rights since 2010, and his massive salary, Messi has, or will, hand over a staggering €53million to the Spanish authorities.
That breaks down as follows;
€22.4m for three years of image rights taxes plus interest payments
€5.1m already paid to the court when the investigation into his financial affairs began
€12m in income tax for 2013 salary alone, already paid by the club
€13m for image rights in 2013
€1m of old taxes still owed
And, if that wasn't bad enough, there is more than likely also to be a fine of €3m applied too, which would bring the total bill up to €56m.
That, as you might imagine, makes him the highest ever individual payer of tax in Spain.
