An Argentine newspaper has claimed that Irish players received bribes not to injure Lionel Messi at the opening game in the Aviva Stadium in 2010, but the story has been dismissed in the strongest possible terms by the Irish football association, FAI. According to La Nacion, a Fifa official was forced to go to extraordinary lengths to bring the Barcelona superstar and his team mates to Dublin.
The America Copa (Cup) currently being played in Chile, and the region's national teams main football competition, has not been without incidents. The one that has attracted most headlines, so far, was the host's leading squad player, Arturo Vidal who went on public television to apologize for drunk driving after crashing his Ferrari.
Three Argentine players have been nominated for the 2014 Golden Ball, the prize awarded by FIFA and France Football magazine to the best player of the year.
Show the world you are better than Messi and you can decide the World Cup, German coach Joachim Löw told Mario Götze before sending him to the field, and effectively scoring the only goal of the match that gave Germany its fourth Cup.
Brazil forward Neymar has done the unpredictable once again by revealing he will support Brazil's biggest rivals Argentina in Sunday's World Cup final against Germany.
Italy’s tax collection agency says it has formally notified Diego Maradona that it will begin procedures to freeze his assets in Italy to pay off his tax debt of 39 million Euros or 53 million dollars.
Barcelona striker Lionel Messi, who turned 26 on Monday and is under investigation in Spain for tax fraud allegations, paid €10 million to the Spanish tax authorities to correct tax returns for 2010 and 2011, according to Spanish media reports.
Argentine soccer super star Lionel Messi and his father Jorge were ordered to appear before a Barcelona court in September after Spanish prosecutors accused the pair of tax fraud.
World famous Barcelona and Argentine striker Lionel Messi has declared on his Facebook page that he is surprised by accusations in Spain of tax avoidance.
John Carlin, the British writer and journalist who works for Spain’s leading newspaper El Pais, with a high degree of irony strongly criticized Argentina’s claim over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands as an ‘epic idiocy’.