Lionel Messi loses high-profile court case

Barcelona star Lionel Messi [Courtesy]

Lionel Messi has lost a high-profile court case after "irregularities" in his charitable foundation's finances were uncovered.

The Barcelona star claimed that an article in ABC Bietio Rubido highlighting alleged irregularities in the finances of the Leo Messi Foundation had affected his honour and he was demanding €202,786 (£180,064) in compensation.

Messi filed the claim against the director of the Spanish daily newspaper and the investigative editor of the newspaper Javier Chicote in June 2017.

However, judge Patricia Batlle Ferrando of the Gava District Court in Barcelona found that the figures published by ABC in three articles in May 2017 "are true".

Messi had claimed that journalist Chicote "had not acted with the journalistic diligence demanded from him" but the judge found that Chicote "indicated at every moment the sources where the published information came from".

The judge added that Chicote had tried to contact the foundation to try and contrast the figures he published but the foundation did not respond to him.

Chicote had "thus fulfilled the duty of care required of the journalist".

The ABC article claimed that the Leo Messi Foundation had not reached the legal minimum that an entity of its type must donate to social purposes and claimed the foundation had a lack of transparency in its accounts from 2007 to 2012.

Lionel Messi has lost a high-profile court case after "irregularities" in his charitable foundation's finances were uncovered [Courtesy]

The court found that "the numbers and information provided by the journalist are true, because they are obtained from a rigorous and objective source."

The sentence, which can be appealed, says: "Messi's representation was limited to proposing two witnesses, members of the Leo Messi Foundation who, within the knowledge they said they had about the numbers of the foundation, recognised the veracity of the lack of registration of the entity until 2013."

The judge added that two witnesses said that "nearly 90 per cent of the foundation's resources came from FC Barcelona."

The sentence ordered Messi to pay Rubido's and Chicote's legal costs.