Chinese authorities have cancelled next month’s friendly between Argentina and Nigeria amid a growing backlash over Lionel Messi’s failure to play in Inter Miami’s friendly in Hong Kong.
Last month, the Argentina national team announced two March friendlies in China, the first against Nigeria in Hangzhou and the second against Ivory Coast in Beijing.
But the Hangzhou Sports Bureau said in a statement on Friday that it had pulled the plug on the match that was set for the Olympic Sports Center Stadium.
“As a commercial event, a company and the Argentinean soccer team negotiated that the team would play a friendly match in March this year in the city of Hangzhou,” the statement said.
“In view of the current well-known reasons, according to the competent authorities, conditions to hold the friendly match are not mature, and the decision has been made to cancel the event.”
The fate of Argentina’s match against Ivory Coast in Beijing was not immediately clear.
The “well-known reasons” cited by the Hangzhou Sports Bureau relate to Messi sitting out Inter Miami’s game against a Hong Kong select side on Sunday.
A sellout crowd of 40,000 had attended the match in Hong Kong – many of them hoping to see the man widely seen as the world’s best footballer, but the occasion ended acrimoniously when fans booed, jeered and demanded refunds as he failed to take to the pitch.
There has been growing anger over the Argentine star’s injury-related absence, in part due to his participation in Miami’s friendlies before and after the game in Hong Kong. Additionally, Miami head coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino said the day before the match that Messi was “likely” to play.
The government-affiliated Global Times in China released a scathing editorial this week speculating Messi’s absence in Hong Kong was due to “political motives,” and that “external forces deliberately wanted to embarrass Hong Kong through this incident.”
Inter Miami has since apologized for Messi’s absence and the event promoter, Tatler Asia, has offered fans a 50 percent refund.
Messi also offered an apology on Chinese social media platform Weibo, saying that his groin injury flared up at the last minute and despite a strong desire to play, he was unable to do so.
“I hope we will have the opportunity to go back [to Hong Kong] one day,” the 36-year-old said.
Peoplesmind
