Ten most controversial moments of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi

The Argentine, Messi has also made the headlines for some bad reasons, so the list has the moments these two players have been on the wrong side of the news.

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Both players have been involved in tax fraud charges.

Messi and his father landed in hot water with the Spanish government when it was revealed that over a period of two years – 2007-2009 to be exact – they’d defrauded the tax authorities of around £3.19m, a pretty monstrous figure by anyone’s standards.

Using tax havens in Uruguay and Belize, Messi and his father hid away the money, thought to be the income from image rights with companies such as Adidas, Danone and Coca-Cola. While Messi denied any knowledge of this, putting the blame solely on his father, who had dealt with the contracts, the courts decided that Leo knew enough to be guilty too.

His sentence? 21 months on probation. There was no word on whether his bank accounts were under his dog’s name, though!

While his Barcelona career has been wildly successful, Messi has had mixed results with his national team Argentina. We’ll get into that a little more later, but it’s a pretty accepted fact in football that unless you’re miles past your prime, you should represent your country until they no longer need you.

Ronaldo on the other hand has been accused of committing three tax offences from 2011 through to 2013. Ronaldo's sentence could range anywhere between 15 months and five years.

The former Manchester United player is alleged to have defrauded the Spanish government of €600,000, and could be forced to repay €15m.

"These two crimes entail prison sentences of two to six years for each of them, which would imply the request of the State Attorney for a total minimum sentence of five years," claimed the Spanish finance ministry.

Accusation of gay affair

Ronaldo was accused of having a gay affair with Moroccan Boxer Badr Hari. The accusation went viral and many sports fans were made to believe, but it later proved to be fake news and the suspicion was dropped.

Attested over rape accusation

Cristiano Ronaldo was arrested in 2005 on suspicion of rape while playing for Manchester United. The lady claimed she was raped in a hotel in central London three weeks before the arrest. Furthermore, she claimed that the football player met her and a friend at a nightclub before going to the hotel room. Obviously Ronaldo did not accept having such an affair. And with little and not enough evidence to charge him against this crime, the allegations were dropped.

Meddling in player selection and deciding choice of coach

The Barcelona and Argentina ace has been accused of influencing player selection at both club and country, although it yet to be proven. It is believed he was the reason why Zlatan Ibrahimovic couldn’t survive at Barca and he why Mauro Icardi hardly get national team call-up.

He has also been accused of influencing Barcelona to hire Gerardo Tata Martino at Barcelona and later at Argentino as coach

Making babies with unknown mothers

He paid surrogate women to have babies for him. His first son Cristiano Ronaldo Junior's mother still remains a mystery and also recently news broke out that his new born twins have another surrogate mother.

Accused of drinking heavily in a nightclub

Everybody was surprised when the news of Cristiano’s heavy drinking came about. Everyone in the entire sports world has the knowledge that CR7 doesn’t drink or smoke because his father died due to drinking. He has a good and clean image about this in the news world and has maintained it since eternity. This news caused one of the biggest Cristiano Ronaldo Controversies among the fans as well as other people. However, this news turned out to be fake and The Daily Mirror was compelled to give a monetary compensation along with a letter of apology regarding the news article. Ronaldo was eventually devastated to hear such rumors about him, but later figured out that nothing can beat him if it is not the truth.

Lionel Messi banned four matches for insulting referee

Fifa were able to take retrospective action against the Barcelona forward as he was not reported for the alleged abuse of the match referee, with Fifa rules stating that bans should be “at least four matches for unsporting conduct toward a match official”.

The incident happened while playing for Argentina in a game against Chile, but his national team successfully appealed against charge for verbal abuse and had the ban reduced to one.

Behind Wayne Rooney red card at the 2006 FIFA World Cup

Wayne Rooney was sent off because of his then Manchester United teammate, Wayne Rooney in the quarter finals of the 2006 FIFA World Cup between Portugal and England. The English press lashed out at the Portuguese, Ronaldo and he almost quit Manchester United.

Announced his retirement from international football

While his Barcelona career has been wildly successful, Messi has had mixed results with his national team Argentina. We’ll get into that a little more later, but it’s a pretty accepted fact in football that unless you’re miles past your prime, you should represent your country until they no longer need you.

That wasn’t the case at all when Messi announced his retirement from international football in June 2016, following an unsuccessful Copa America campaign that saw Argentina lose in the final to Chile. The game went to a penalty shootout after ending 0-0, and to rub salt into the superstar’s wounds, Messi missed his penalty.

Following the loss – Messi’s fourth in a major final with Argentina – he announced that he was hanging up his international boots at just 29 years old, basically still in the prime of his career. It was an odd decision from the beginning – almost like a child refusing to play on after a bad loss.

Less than three months later though – after a fan campaign – Messi was back in the blue and white stripes of Argentina, claiming he hadn’t deceived anyone with the quick un-retirement. Not sure about that one, Leo.

Questioned the quality of his Real Madrid teammates

Ronaldo questioned the standard of play of his Real Madrid teammates when the team were struggling to find their feat last season. Ronaldo said“If the whole team was in my level, we’d be first’’. Now, this is a bit rude and hurtful to other team member and that’s why the controversy took place.