The Argentinian star Lionel Messi will face investigations regarding a tax fraud issue, said a judge in Cataluyna this Monday.

The Barcelona star has already faced this kind of situation before in 2006 and 2009, for a tax evasion case amounting to €4.1 million or $5.5 million, but he was proven innocent for both cases.

However, the player and his father, Jorge, still paid around €5 million or $6.7 million to the authorities just to close the issue.

Nevertheless, the Gava judge still believes that the father and son is guilty, and will push through the prosecution against the Golden Ball winner.

Messi is one of the highest paid athletes in the world, earning around $40 million or £23.5 million a year or a season, plus around $23 million from his various sponsors.

A statement released earlier this year read: "Lionel A. Messi was not involved in the decision-making on the management and channelling of his income and did not really know the scope, size, purpose or effects of the corporate network."

It suggested that Messi could not have managed his finances, but his father did. And so, the Barca player was unaware of his tax evasion.

However, a new statement from the judge's office released more recently said that "there is sufficient evidence" that Messi "could have known about and consented to the creation and maintaining of a fictitious financial structure." And so, that ends his innocence.

The new evidence shows that the documents has Messi's signature, and so, both Jorge the father, and his son, the Argentine talisman could actually be aware of the transactions.

The judge suggested that the Golden Ball winner "could have warned about the intervention of others in these cases or read some of these contracts, even if it was only the headers".

Messi is the fourth top- earning athletes in the world, next to Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lebron James.

With reports from: sportingnews.com/ theguardian.com