{"id":848063,"date":"2026-08-08T14:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T14:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/848063\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T14:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T14:26:10","slug":"football-news-2026-lionel-messis-dad-jorge-dies-after-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/848063\/","title":{"rendered":"Football news 2026: Lionel Messi\u2019s dad Jorge dies after illness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jorge Messi, the father of soccer star Lionel Messi<\/a>, died on Saturday at the age of 68 at a medical clinic in the Argentine city of Rosario after a long illness, the Argentine footballer\u2019s family confirmed to Reuters.<\/p>\n

Jorge spent his final months alternating between a medical centre in Rosario and his home, accompanied by his wife Celia and his children Rodrigo, Mat\u00edas and Mar\u00eda Sol, the family said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lionel Messi and Jorge Messi.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Lionel Messi spent time with his father after the World Cup<\/a> before rejoining his club, Inter Miami, for whom he returned to action a week ago.<\/p>\n

Jorge closely accompanied his son Lionel throughout his career, beginning with his early years at Barcelona. <\/p>\n

He acted as a crucial pillar of support and, for several years, served as his representative.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always needed my dad\u2019s approval, ever since I was a kid. After every match, I\u2019d ask him what he thought of how I played,\u201d the global football star said previously.<\/p>\n

During the World Cup, the captain of the Argentine national team experienced mixed emotions after scoring a hat trick<\/a> in the opening match against Algeria, breaking down in tears while celebrating his first goal.<\/p>\n

Later, at a press conference, Lionel explained that his tears were due to \u201csomething unrelated to football\u201d after going through \u201ca few difficult, complicated days.\u201d<\/p>\n

Days later, the family issued a statement regarding Jorge\u2019s \u201chealth situation\u201d, informing the public that he was undergoing medical treatment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jorge Messi, the father of soccer star Lionel Messi, died on Saturday at the age of 68 at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-848063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}