Jorge Messi, Lionel Messi’s father and longtime agent, dies at 68

Jorge Mes­si, the fa­ther of soc­cer star and Ar­genti­na cap­tain Li­onel Mes­si, died Sat­ur­day at a hos­pi­tal in the cen­tral Ar­genti­na city of Rosario. He was 68.

The Rosario-based Club Atléti­co Newell’s Old Boys an­nounced his death in a so­cial me­dia post that said he had un­der­gone treat­ment in re­cent months for an un­spec­i­fied ill­ness. The post de­scribed him as “the pil­lar and the per­son who, with vi­sion, rig­or and af­fec­tion, sup­port­ed the ca­reer of the best play­er of all time, along­side his wife, Celia Cuc­cit­ti­ni.”

The South Amer­i­can Foot­ball Con­fed­er­a­tion, CON­MEBOL, in a state­ment al­so of­fered its con­do­lences “with re­spect and af­fec­tion for Li­onel.”

Li­onel Mes­si led Ar­genti­na to a run­ner-up fin­ish in this year’s World Cup. In the team’s first match, against Al­ge­ria, he was vis­i­bly emo­tion­al af­ter scor­ing the first of his three goals. He said lat­er that he wept for “a rea­son un­re­lat­ed to sports.”

“I went through some dif­fi­cult, com­pli­cat­ed days,” he said. “I am grate­ful to the del­e­ga­tion, to all my team­mates, be­cause they were al­ways by my side wish­ing me strength so that I would be OK.”

Me­dia re­ports at the time out­raged the Mes­si fam­i­ly, which days lat­er re­leased a state­ment con­firm­ing that “Jorge is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a health is­sue,” with­out spec­i­fy­ing the na­ture of his con­di­tion.

“A per­son’s health and the peace of mind of their loved ones should not be the sub­ject of spec­u­la­tion or ir­re­spon­si­ble me­dia in­ter­est,” ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, which al­so ex­pressed “dis­com­fort at the lack of sen­si­tiv­i­ty, re­spect and scru­ples with which some peo­ple have treat­ed a strict­ly pri­vate and fam­i­ly mat­ter.”

Jorge Mes­si was a chem­i­cal tech­ni­cian and worked as a steel­work­er. He played soc­cer as a mid­field­er and reached the youth ranks of Newell’s Old Boys but had to aban­don the sport to com­plete his manda­to­ry mil­i­tary ser­vice in Ar­genti­na.

He played a fun­da­men­tal role in his third son’s ca­reer, serv­ing as his agent and man­ag­ing his busi­ness af­fairs. He was the one who trav­elled with a young Mes­si to Barcelona in the ear­ly 2000s for the tri­al that would open the doors to La Ma­sia, the Cata­lan club’s youth acad­e­my. Li­onel Mes­si made his pro­fes­sion­al de­but in 2005 and went on to win eight Bal­lon d’Or awards. He led Ar­genti­na to the 2022 World Cup ti­tle.

“My dad was al­ways by my side,” Li­onel Mes­si said in a 2007 in­ter­view with Ra­dio del Pla­ta. “Some­times I would lock my­self in my room to cry when we ar­rived in Barcelona, or my dad would do the same with­out me see­ing him or think­ing I didn’t see him. We pre­tend­ed we were both OK, but we weren’t. My dad even asked me what I want­ed to do when we were feel­ing down, if I want­ed to stay or go back, and I want­ed to stay, and he stayed with me.”

His fa­ther ne­go­ti­at­ed the con­tracts with Barça and lat­er his trans­fers to Paris Saint-Ger­main and In­ter Mi­a­mi, while al­so man­ag­ing the use of his fa­mous son’s im­age rights and his nu­mer­ous in­vest­ments in re­al es­tate, ho­tels, and restau­rants.

In 2013, fa­ther and son were ac­cused by a Span­ish pros­e­cu­tor of try­ing to con­ceal earn­ings from the play­er’s im­age rights. Jorge Mes­si paid more than 5 mil­lion eu­ros ($6.6 mil­lion) on Aug. 14 to cov­er al­leged back tax­es and in­ter­est. —MON­TE­V­IDEO, Uruguay (AP)

_________

Sto­ry by RAMIRO BAR­REIRO | The As­so­ci­at­ed Press