\u201cOn behalf of Spanish football, we wish to convey all our love and affection to Lionel and his loved ones during this time of deep sorrow,\u201d the RFEF said in a statement.<\/p>\n
A former metal factory worker, Jorge Messi was his son\u2019s first coach in Argentina and his sole companion when he first moved to Barcelona, Spain, as a child, before later becoming his agent.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy father helped me enormously. He is very critical of me. That made me always want to push myself further,\u201d Lionel Messi told DirecTV Sports in 2022.<\/p>\n
In 2000, Jorge left behind a stable job in Argentina, his wife and three other children to move to Spain with his 13-year-old son.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we arrived in Barcelona, I used to lock myself in my room to cry alone, and my father did the same \u2013 either without me seeing him or thinking I didn\u2019t see him. We pretended we were both fine, but we were struggling,\u201d Messi later said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen things were tough, my father even asked me what I wanted to do, whether I wanted to keep going or go back home. I wanted to continue, so he stayed with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subsequently, Jorge finalised his son\u2019s first contract with Barcelona, becoming his agent and sole representative with the Spanish club and later at Paris Saint-Germain, France, and in Miami, the United States.<\/p>\n
A private man, Jorge Messi rarely gave interviews, but on the few occasions he spoke publicly of his unbreakable bond with his son, now aged 39.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe day Leo stops playing, I think a dream will shatter for me, and I won\u2019t watch football anymore,\u201d he told German magazine Kicker in 2013.<\/p>\n
However, his life was not without controversy.<\/p>\n
In 2013, Spanish authorities accused both father and son of using a network of companies across the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Belize, and Uruguay between 2007 and 2009 to collect the footballer\u2019s image rights and evade Spanish taxes.<\/p>\n
The case was resolved in 2017 following multi-million-euro fines.<\/p>\n
In 2019, Jorge and Lionel \u2013 with the Leo Messi Foundation \u2013 faced new allegations in Spain involving suspected tax offences, fraud, and money laundering.<\/p>\n
This second case was dismissed in 2021.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cOn behalf of Spanish football, we wish to convey all our love and affection to Lionel and his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[44481,18919,6116,95,696,34498,1848,6184,18836,6179,7126,34499,276921,2209,276920,168033,118355,242711,111,276922,139,69,1534,213,16566],"class_list":["post-563144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-44481","tag-aged","tag-agent","tag-and","tag-announced","tag-ballon","tag-boys","tag-childhood","tag-club","tag-died","tag-dies","tag-dor","tag-eighttime","tag-father","tag-jorge","tag-lionel","tag-messi","tag-messis","tag-new-zealand","tag-newells","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-saturday","tag-sports","tag-winners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}