The Argentine has been fined €815,000 and handed a year’s sentence for two counts of fiscal crimes committed in 2011 and 2012, he previously admitted to the offences, repaid the money owed and paid a hefty fine as recompense.

After such compliance with the investigation, the court is expected to grant the wish of Mascherano and his lawyer, David Aineto, in suspending the custodial sentence in exchange for a further fine.

The Barcelona star said in a statement released on yesterday Thursday 22nd : “I’m a professional sportsman and I don’t know a lot about legal and financial matters.” Scroll down for Javier Mascherano’s statement in full.

”Today I have reached an agreement with the Spanish tax authorities, with a firm verdict agreed by all parties. Thus, with a resolution now for the legal matters and with the relief of having sorted my tax situation, I would like to make a brief statement.

After agreeing my move to Barcelona I contracted a specialist tax agency with well-known professionals that enjoy a great reputation. According to my situation they recommended me certain structures, all within the law, telling me that they were normal, transparent and accepted procedures.

I was assessed by these professionals from 2010 to 2014 I decided to change agency because of the proceedings I was facing, and with evidence that the problems may not be ‘potential’ but in fact very real. My new agency recommended that I pay the tax authorities the money they were claiming, presenting also a corrective payment.

Now, finally, after a long wait this agreement has arrived which allows me to relax again and go about my daily life.

I’m a professional sportsman and I don’t know a lot about legal and financial matters.

Therefore I must rely on the people that manage these technical, and for me, complicated, issues.

All my career I have been an honest and responsible person… I will take this experience that has accosted me as another experience which I will leave stronger and calmed by the fact that I am once again within the law.”

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The death is being investigated as a suspected suicide. According to the press release, Phillips was found unresponsive at 12:05 a.m. on Wednesday when the staff at Kern Valley State Prison was conducting security checks. He was transported to an outside hospital where he was pronounced dead at 1:27 a.m.

Phillips had been serving 31 years for two separate incidents. In 2005 he twice choked his girlfriend. Later that year he attacked three teens with his car after a pickup football game. He was in prison for inflicting great bodily injury involving domestic violence, corporal injury to a spouse, false imprisonment and vehicle theft.

Phillips was also facing murder charges for killing his cellmate, 37-year-old Damion Soward, who was strangled to death at Kern Valley State Prison last April. Phillips was charged with first-degree murder in September. The CDCR release said Phillips was in the first stages of his trial in Soward’s death.

Phillips had a rocky life, and that included his NFL career. He found himself in trouble at the University of Nebraska, including a suspension for an incident in which he allegedly dragged his ex-girlfriend by her hair down a flight of stairs. Phillips was still drafted sixth overall by the St. Louis Rams in 1996. After unproductive play on the field and more trouble off it, the Rams cut him. He played briefly with the San Francisco 49ers and Miami Dolphins before he was out of the NFL for good after the 1999 season. He averaged just 3.4 yards in the NFL. He tried playing in the Arena Football League, NFL Europe, the Canadian Football League, but never caught on for very long in any of those leagues.

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