​Barcelona's Javier Mascherano has been sentenced to one year in prison and been handed a fine of €815,000 for two tax evasion offences, ​Sport report.





The Argentinian has been in court on Thursday morning, having already pleaded guilty to both charges in past appearances. He admitted defrauding the treasury of €1.5m euros over 2011 and 2012, and despite the prison sentence his lawyer David Aineto has already requested the automatic suspension of the sentence.

He's pushing for the sentence to be replaced by a new monetary fine of around €21,000, and according to the report the prosecution are happy to accept this new measure too. While this sentence has been handed down, a new one is expected in the coming days - meaning Mascherano is likely to avoid prison after all.





The player released a statement on his Twitter feed on Thursday afternoon essentially saying that he'd reached an agreement with the Spanish tax authorities, to pay a further fine and not actually go through with the sentence - even while he had accepted it.





His statement appears below...

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