Voice of Hope February 10, 2024
Comprehensive report by our reporter Liu Fangli
The controversy surrounding Argentine star Messi’s Hong Kong exhibition match continues to spread. After the Chinese Communist Party’s official media claimed that the matter was “politically motivated,” Hangzhou and Beijing announced from the 9th to the 10th that they had canceled the Argentine national football team’s local matches and “had no plans to hold relevant matches,” sparking discussion.
According to Chinese Communist Party media reports, the Hangzhou Municipal Sports Bureau of Zhejiang Province publicly announced on the evening of the 9th, “As a commercial event, a company previously negotiated with the Argentine football team to come to Hangzhou for a friendly match in March. Due to “well-known reasons,” according to information from the competent authorities, “The conditions for holding this event are not mature,” and we have decided to cancel this event. Special notice!”
One day after the incident, the Beijing Football Association (Beijing Football Association) publicly announced through its Sina Weibo account today with the title “Statement on Messi’s coming to Beijing to play”, “Recently many fans and netizens have asked about Messi’s coming to Beijing.” Beijing competition information. According to verification, Beijing currently has no plans to hold relevant competitions in which Messi will participate.”
The Argentina national football team announced through its Sina Weibo account in January that it would visit China from March 18 to 26 this year and hold friendly matches at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center and the Beijing Workers’ Stadium respectively, but did not mention Lionel Messi. ) will participate in the competition.
Inter Miami CF, to which Messi belongs, played a pre-season friendly match in Hong Kong on the 4th. However, Messi did not leave the game until the end. As a result, more than 38,000 Hong Kong and Chinese fans paid tickets ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 Hong Kong dollars to enter the venue. There were boos. After the game, Messi even avoided shaking hands with Hong Kong Chief Executive Li Jiachao, who was present, leading to widespread speculation and strong dissatisfaction among many Chinese patriotic people.
The Global Times, the peripheral official media of the Chinese Communist Party, published an editorial on the 8th, claiming that there are many speculations about the real reasons behind Messi and Inter Miami’s actions. There is a saying that there are “political motives” and that Hong Kong intends to build a grand event economy. “There are external forces who deliberately want to use this to embarrass Hong Kong. Judging from the development of the situation, the possibility of this speculation cannot be ruled out.”
The editorial even pointed out, “Messi’s Argentina national football team is scheduled to come to China to participate in a friendly match in March this year. I hope he will give a reasonable explanation to the outside world before then.”
Editor in charge: Liu Fangli
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