{"id":622891,"date":"2026-06-05T15:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T15:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/622891\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T15:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T15:49:14","slug":"70ft-lionel-messi-statue-taken-down-over-safety-fears-indy-tv-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/622891\/","title":{"rendered":"70ft Lionel Messi statue taken down over safety fears | Indy TV &#8211; Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A 70ft <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/lionel-messi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lionel Messi<\/a> statue erected in India has been taken down just months later due to safety concerns.<\/p>\n<p>In December 2025, the giant monument was installed in Kolkata, West Bengal during the footballer\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/tv\/sport\/football-lionel-messi-india-goat-tour-video-b2886805.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Greatest of All Time (GOAT) tour of the country.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>However, it has since been removed after engineers from the Public Works Department (PWD) discovered its structural integrity had been severely compromised after locals complained of seeing it move in bad weather.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The statue of the Argentine football legend was found [to be] unsafe,&#8221; said West Bengal state legislator Sharadwat Mukherjee.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have noticed that the statue is swaying in the wind.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 70ft Lionel Messi statue erected in India has been taken down just months later due to safety&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,211382,211381,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-622891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-optamatchid2562254","tag-optauuid51i8bgm45ruiglvkbgnyb6ihg","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}