Soccer superstar Lionel Messi on Tuesday published a taunting video on China’s regime-controlled social media app Weibo, saying he had no “political” opposition to China and had “close and nice relationships” with the Chinese people. ” claimed they were enjoying their relationship. This is his latest endeavor. This is to quell the fallout from his inability to play during an exhibition game in Hong Kong.
Messi visited Hong Kong with his league team Inter Miami in early February as part of an Asian tour that included visits to Saudi Arabia and Japan. His appearance in Hong Kong caused a frenzy among football fans, who paid exorbitant prices for tickets to the match, but in the end it turned out that Messi was not playing. Luis Suarez, another prominent Inter Miami player with a large fan base, also missed the game. According to reports, Messi and Suarez missed the match due to injuries.
On February 7, Messi played in a similar friendly in Tokyo, Japan, drawing the ire of the Chinese government.National government Global Times newspaper claimed He said that compared to his friendly demeanor in Japan, in Hong Kong Messi appeared to be “expressionless and with his hands in his pockets” and wondered if Messi’s behavior was “politically motivated.” I guessed it.
After the suppression of the democracy movement in 2020, the Hong Kong government was completely absorbed by the Chinese Communist Party. declared He himself was “very disappointed” by Messi’s absence and suggested “follow-up with the organizers”.by Global Timeshong kong police received There have been “at least six reports regarding Messi” and the city’s Consumer Commission has documented 547 complaints about the match.
The Beijing and Hangzhou soccer federations canceled plans to host Argentina’s national team in an exhibition match scheduled for March, with the latter saying the cancellation was a result of “well-known issues.”
Immediately after the first incident, Messi explained that doctors did not believe it was safe for him to play in Hong Kong. In his video posted on Weibo on Tuesday — ridiculed The video was criticized online for being similar to a “hostage video.” He reiterated his claim that he had medical reasons not to play, explicitly denied having any “political” opposition to the Chinese Communist Party, and described his relationship with Chinese fans as “amazing”.
“I have read and heard many things after what happened at the Hong Kong match. I created this video to give the true version so that no one has to keep reading the false narrative. I wanted to.” Messi Said With Spanish, Chinese and English subtitles.
“I want to play in every game, but I’ve heard that some people don’t want to play because of political issues or other unrelated reasons.” [with the absence]”, Messi claimed, hinting at political opposition to the Japanese government, “If that were the case, I wouldn’t even have gone to Japan,” and “otherwise I would have gone to China many times over.” ” he added.
Messi is sponsored by a number of Chinese companies and was a regular visitor to China before the Hong Kong incident. Their most recent outing before February took place in June, when they played a game on genocidal dictator Xi Jinping’s birthday. Messi also appeared on a livestream from regime-aligned e-commerce giant Alibaba and attempted to speak Mandarin.
“Since the beginning of my career, I have had a very close and great relationship with China and have done a lot of things with them, including interviews, matches, events and many games against Barcelona. [Argentine national] Team,” Messi continued. “I did the best I could. I was in a football clinic with the kids that were there. I couldn’t really play.”
“Hope to see you again soon, give me a big hug, Ciao!” he concluded.
Immediately after the match, in his first comments on the incident, Messi blamed his absence on “bad luck” and gave a detailed chronology of events surrounding the injury.
“In the first match of the tour, [Saudi] Arabia, I felt discomfort in my adductor muscles. [leg muscle]; That’s why I left,” Messi told reporters.
In the second game, I played the minutes I played to test myself…then I went to Hong Kong for public training. There were a lot of people and there was a clinic, so I went. The kids had work to do, and I wanted to be there to participate.
“Unfortunately, the thing about football. In any game someone can get hurt. It happened to me,” he shrugged.
Messi did not explicitly apologize for not playing in the game against Hong Kong in a point-scorer Weibo video on Tuesday. Global Times In his book, editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said: response Go to video.
Hu responded: “Messi did not apologize, but clearly explained what happened and ruled out political reasons.” “I’m only representing myself and I accept his explanation. … Of course, after this controversy, Messi’s public image in China has been tarnished and that is not something that will be easily repaired. It’s the cost.”
China Dailyanother state-run newspaper said flatly. declared It said Messi’s video was “not good enough” and called for “more transparent communication” in the future, quoting “experts”.
“There were better options to avoid this crisis. First, we should have acted sooner instead of posting the video two weeks later,” said consulting expert Adam Chan Chin. he told the program.
