Argentina tour of China canceled over Messi no-show row

Both of Argentina’s deliberate friendlies in China have been canceled by native authorities after Lionel Messi didn’t play in an Inter Miami match in Hong Kong final weekend.

Beijing’s soccer affiliation mentioned on Saturday that it could not set up Argentina’s scheduled pleasant conflict in opposition to the Ivory Coast in March. The information comes a day after Hangzhou’s sports activities authorities additionally canceled a pleasant between Argentina and Nigeria.

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Messi’s failure to play in Hong Kong on Sunday prompted widespread anger amongst followers, with China’s state-controlled Global Times saying the “impact of this incident has far exceeded the realm of sports.”

The Beijing Football Association mentioned in a press release to native media: “Beijing does not plan, for the moment, to organise the match in which Lionel Messi was to participate.”

Messi, who didn’t play within the pleasant because of a reported damage, appeared as a second-half substitute on Wednesday in a subsequent Inter Miami pleasant in opposition to Vissel Kobe in Tokyo.

Organisers of the Hong Kong pleasant, Tatler Asia, introduced a 50% refund on tickets, which price as much as practically HK$5000 ($639), following criticism from the Hong Kong authorities.

Inter Miami has received just one of the six video games in its preseason tour — stretching from El Salvador to Dallas into Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong and ending in Tokyo. The workforce’s remaining warmup match is scheduled for Feb. 16 in Florida in opposition to Newell’s Old Boys, Messi’s boyhood membership from Rosario, Argentina.

Information from Reuters and The Associated Press was used on this report.