Lionel Messi \u201cstill loves\u201d Hong Kong and China, and the world\u2019s greatest footballer is likely to return to the region \u201cin the near future\u201d, according to a successful entrepreneur with close ties to Asia and the Argentine Football Association (AFA).<\/p>\n
Honoured this year for his sports marketing agency\u2019s \u201coutstanding contribution to the UK-China relationship through the promotion of sport in China\u201d, Michael Rocha-Keys launched EMW Global in 2018 to bridge a sporting gap that existed between east and west.<\/p>\n
EMW, which is an acronym for East Meets West, has a \u201ccommercial advisory role\u201d with the AFA for this summer\u2019s World Cup, where Argentine Messi is set for his sixth finals appearance.<\/p>\n
After staying fixed to the bench when Inter Miami played a Tatler Asia-organised match in Hong Kong in February 2024, Messi\u2019s popularity rating in the city plummeted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened was very sad and very controversial, but I think time heals all,\u201d Rocha-Keys told the South China Morning Post. \u201cHe still loves the region, he still loves going there and, ultimately, he\u2019ll be back, but, hopefully, in a more organised manner.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Messi\u2019s no-show, Chinese officials cancelled planned matches for world champions Argentina in Hangzhou and Beijing the following month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi \u201cstill loves\u201d Hong Kong and China, and the world\u2019s greatest footballer is likely to return to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[93110,9877,45973,337,5560,1657,205087,19712,3448,85,54341,46,54038,442,205088,5959,105,28724],"class_list":["post-437188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-afa","tag-argentina","tag-argentine-football-association","tag-asia","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-emw-global","tag-fifa","tag-hong-kong","tag-il","tag-inter-miami","tag-israel","tag-lionel-messi","tag-london","tag-michael-rocha-keys","tag-south-china-morning-post","tag-sports","tag-uefa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}