MOSCOW, February 10 The Sports Bureau of the Chinese city of Hangzhou announced cancellation of a friendly football match between the Argentina national team and the Nigerian team.
Last Sunday in Hong Kong, the team of Argentine striker Inter Miami Lionel Messi defeated the Hong Kong team with a score of 4:1 in the presence of 38,323 spectators. Messi spent the entire game on the bench due to a hamstring strain. Tickets for this match sold for over HK$1,000 (US$125). Midway through the second half, fans chanted “We want Messi!” and booed club co-owner David Beckham, who after the game apologized for the Argentine's absence, as well as Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez and tried to thank the crowd for their «incredible support.» Hong Kong authorities later demanded that the match organizers explain Messi's absence from the field.
«»The sports bureau held negotiations with the Argentine national team about coming to Hangzhou for a friendly match in March. Due to known reasons, the competent authorities came to the conclusion that there are no conditions for holding a match with the participation of the Argentine team. A decision was made to cancel this event,» the statement said , published on WeChat.
It later became known that the organizer of a friendly football match between Inter Miami and the Hong Kong national team, Tatler Asia, will return half the cost of tickets to fans due to Messi's absence on the field. It was also reported that the Hong Kong regulator registered more than a thousand complaints from fans who were unhappy with the footballer’s absence from the match.
Messi is a graduate of the Spanish Barcelona, where he became a ten-time champion of Spain and a four-time winner of the Champions League. In 2021, he moved to the French Paris Saint-Germain, with whom he won the national championship twice and the French Super Cup once. In the summer of 2023, Messi became a player for Inter Miami. As a member of the Argentina national team, he won the World Cup and the America's Cup.