Newell’s will still be close, because the club is one of the sixteen academies at this year’s Messi Cup.
If owning clubs is one love, youth football is the other, and his regular presence at his son’s games and the Messi Cup are the proof.
He puts his money and his time into a tournament for Under-16 academies, which began in 2025 with eight teams.
Last year, the organisers expected him to come to one or two games, perhaps only the final, but to everyone’s surprise, he sat through every match on every day.
This year the teams doubled to 16, from 25 October at Inter Miami’s facilities in Florida, including Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Arsenal, UE Cornella, and others.
Away from the pitch, Messi has built a portfolio that helps explain why Forbes put his net worth at about $1.1bn, external in June, with earnings of around $140m over the previous year split between football and business.
His best known endorsement is the lifetime Adidas deal he signed in 2017.
The most visible piece is MiM Hotels, six boutique properties from Ibiza to Andorra, which Melia has run under a rental agreement since 1 November 2025.
MiM takes its name from Messi and the Majestic hotel group, and runs the hotels inside its Melia Collection.
In Rosario, his family firm invests in Carrasco M, a development of 24 homes by the Parana river, with Ángel Di María’s property agency handling the sales.
He is also a partner in the restaurant chain El Club de la Milanesa which plans to open five branches in Catalonia, the first in Castelldefels.
He has a mate collection with the drinkware giants Stanley, the brand’s first multi-year deal with an athlete, and he gave his opinion on materials and colours.
The business side began with his father. Jorge Messi, who died in August aged 68, looked after his son’s affairs from the start, and some of his early advice led the family into trouble with the tax authorities in Spain.
The company then grew into branches for TV production, marketing, media and commercial partnerships, among others, all well established by the time Jorge fell seriously ill.
Messi trusts the people who run them, some of them with him since his early days at Barcelona, and a thorough filter means he only gets offered and chooses what he is comfortable with.
He sets his own relationship with the business world, and nobody imposes anything on him.
In Miami last November, Messi told the America Business Forum: “Business is something that interests me. I would like to keep learning because I know nothing and I am just starting out.”
The portfolio his circle has prepared is already impressive while he finds more football targets to keep the flame alive.