Chinese sporting authorities have cancelled next month’s international friendly between Argentina and Nigeria’s Super Eagles over a row involving eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi.
World champions Argentina were billed to play Nigeria in the Chinese city of Hangzhou in March before facing AFCON 2023 winners Elephants of Côte d’Ivoire in Beijing
But Messi’s failure to feature for Inter Miami in a friendly game against Hong Kong Select XI in Hong Kong on Sunday caused widespread anger among fans.
The organiser of the Hong Kong match stated that they would give fans a 50% refund for tickets after the former Barcelona star missed the game due to injury, but played in Japan days later.
The backlash grew on Friday, with Hangzhou sports authorities, in a statement, saying that Argentina’s friendly against Nigeria would no longer take place.
“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 organiser said.
“In view of the current well-known reasons, according to the competent authorities, conditions to hold the friendly match are not mature, therefore (we) have decided to cancel it.”
It was not immediately clear if Argentina’s other friendly against Ivory Coast in Beijing would also be called off.
Meanwhile, Messi has denied claims that his absence from the match in Hong Kong was for political reasons.
In a video posted on China’s Weibo social media platform late on Monday, Messi said if that had been the case, he would not have travelled to Hong Kong in the first place.
He said as everyone knows, he always wants to play and be in every game.
Reports on Tuesday indicated that the friendly game between Argentina and Nigeria has been rescheduled to be held in the United States of America in March. The date is yet to be announced.
The last time the two teams met was in the group stage, at the Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup which Argentina won by 2-1.
