The Barcelona maestro and his father, Jorge Messi already face tax evasion charges which if he’s found guilty of could potentially lead to almost two years imprisonment.

He could be in further trouble. The Panama Papers, the largest information leak in history blows the lid off the ways very rich individuals use international shell companies to evade taxes. The data was obtained from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm which helps clients to set up such companies in offshore tax regimes. There are a number of heads of state and well known personalities who have been named and this includes Messi and his father who have an offshore company in Panama called Mega Star Enterprises.

The first reference to this company was made a day before the Spanish government filed tax fraud charges against the footballer and his father. With this new information, Spanish prosecutors have already launched an investigation to determine if any laws have been broken. Having an offshore company is not in contravention of law, it only is, if used for money laundering or tax evasion. Messi and his family have already put out a statement that claims no wrong doing and that the company holds no funds.

There well might be something to all this but from a football perspective, any thing that embarrasses Messi and increases the chances of cutting his career short benefits Real Madrid tremendously. Watch for the Merengues media empire to work this story hard.