The Tax fraud trial of football star Lionel Messi and his father begins in Barcelona on Tuesday. Barcelona's five-time World Player of the Year has been accused of defrauding the Spanish state of more than four million euros, or 4.5 million dollars between 2007 and 2009.

The prosecutor alleges that Messi and his father, who manages his financial affairs, evaded taxes using shell companies in Uruguay, Belize, Switzerland and the UK. Both of them deny any wrongdoing. They paid 5 million euros to the tax authorities as a "corrective payment" back in 2013 when the official investigation begun.