June 13, 2016 | Gunner Steele

Lionel Messi is arguably the most famous man in the world, and yet there is a good chance that you've never heard of him.

He's a soccer player (or a "Footballer" or "Futbolista" as the rest of the world calls him), and he's not just good—he's amazing. Or as one fellow soccer star said, "He's a miracle from God."

The man has more trophies and has broken more records than you can imagine. He recently won the coveted Ballon D'Or Award for the 5th time—the award given by World Soccer's governing body, FIFA, to the best player in the world. That's right, he's been named the greatest soccer player in the world 5 times!

Depending upon who you ask, some say he is the best soccer player who has ever lived, and some say he is actually the best athlete who has ever lived.

And right now, he's in the headlines all over the world—but not for breaking another soccer record (I don't think he has any left he can break)—rather he's in the news because he's going through a major tax evasion investigation.

Yup. That's right. Lionel Messi—the famously humble superstar who has inspired more young people to play soccer, whose name adorns countless jerseys on men, women, and children around the world, and the man for whom Kobe Bryant says, "I wear the number 10 Jersey for the US National Team in honor of the Greatest athlete I have ever seen: Messi," is being publicly paraded through the Spanish court system for allegedly not paying enough in taxes.

Actually, the Spanish government is claiming that Messi and his father, have used shell companies and "structured" the manner in which he gets paid by sponsors so that he could minimize his tax bill! Oh my goodness! How could he?!?!

I mean, what kind of decent human being would want their host government to steal less of their own money? Money that they ultimately plunder away on largesse, waste, war, and corruption?

Yup, Spain's socialist democracy is just as wasteful and foolish as any other government.

2 Reasons This Matters
I am bringing this up to you for 2 simple reasons. The first is simple: no matter who you are, government will always to try to steal from you. You would think that Messi's uber-celebrity status would earn him a little bit of protection from thieving governments. Undoubtedly, Messi's personal efforts have generated more Euros (€) for Spain through tourism, taxes on soccer tickets, taxes on jersey sales, and the like—than the entire Council of the European Union (a well known corrupt European body).

And I personally don't doubt that Messi is completely innocent. But he is going to go through the ringer publicly to prove his innocence. Sheesh! Leave the guy alone and let him get back to dribbling through legions of defenders, scoring goals, and generally putting the world audience in awe.

I am confident that he did not knowingly or willingly break the law. But even if he is guilty of breaking some obscure Spanish law somewhere in an attempt to keep more of his own, hard-earned money—I say, good for him! Its his money! And who can navigate their way through the mountains of legalese and regulatory nonsense from a gazillion different jurisdictions anyway?

And he should be trying to minimize his taxes. His own charitable efforts will unquestionably do more good for Spain, Argentina, and the world, than the Spanish government could do with it.

And I think every man on the planet should use this opportunity to instruct their children as to the real goal of government—to control its people and to use them as milk cows. No matter who you are, the government just wants to milk you dry like a dairy cow. Let your children know that to a bloated, metastasized, debt-laden government bureaucrat, even Lionel Messi is a milk cow!

Reason # 2
The second reason for bringing this to your attention is to help you realize how big the world really is and how small most Americans perception or reality actually is.

If you don't know who Messi is then your perspective of the world is outrageously small. Messi might be statistically speaking, the most famous man who has ever lived in the world at any point in time. More famous than Caesar, Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, Mohamed, or even Jesus Christ were in their times.

You can take the fame and celebrity status of Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Kobe Bryant, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and Michael Phelps COMBINED and they still wouldn't be as famous as Messi.

If that sounds hard to swallow, then consider this—the Super Bowl this past year was the most widely watched event in American TV history, with over 120 million Americans watching! In other words, 1 out of 3 Americans were watching that game. It was unreal.

But 2 years ago, over 1 Billion people in the world watched the World Cup Final (soccer), and a lot of it was because Messi was playing in it (he even was awarded the 'Man of the Match' award). In other words, nearly 10 times more people in the world were watching Messi play the World Cup Final than there were watching the Super Bowl. And it certainly wouldn't be a stretch to say that probably twice that many people actually know who Messi is. In other words, probably 2 billion people on the planet right now know who Messi is.

So what's the point?

Think about it—Lionel Messi could walk around in most places in America and nobody would know who he is because Americans are some of the least knowledgeable "global citizens" around.

So think about the opportunity that leaves for those of you who are smarter than "the average bear?"

If Americans don't even know about the most famous man on the planet, how much do you think they know or realize about opportunities around the world? Opportunities for financial growth, real estate investments, business opportunities, life-changing experiences, charitable causes, and YUP, you guessed it—even opportunities for enhanced FREEDOM and lifestyles?

I encourage you to open your eyes and open your mind. The world is a big place, and there are opportunities for unlimited prosperity and perpetual Freedom throughout the world—no matter what's going on in Washington. Freedom is here to stay! I guarantee it.

Until next Monday, I'm yours in Freedom,
Gunner Steele
The Freedom Man