Lionel Messi mourns the death of his father Jorge Messi in Rosario

Jorge Messi was far more than a parent to one of the most decorated footballers of his generation. For many years he also acted as Lionel Messi's manager and closest advisor, sitting in on contract negotiations with Barcelona and guiding the early career of a player who would go on to lift the World Cup in Qatar in 2022 and to continue his career in Major League Soccer. The relationship between father and son remained unusually close even as the player's entourage grew into a global operation.

A father and an advisor

News that Jorge Messi was seriously ill had already circulated during the World Cup held across the United States, Canada and Mexico, when Lionel Messi led Argentina's title defense. The timing of those reports, while the global spotlight was fixed on the Argentine squad, gave the story an unusual public dimension and helped explain the player's subdued demeanor in the tournament's closing stages, according to contemporary commentary.

The Messi family has its roots in Rosario, the city on the Paraná River where Lionel Messi was born in 1987 and where he came through the youth ranks of Newell's Old Boys before moving to Barcelona's La Masia academy as a teenager. The decision to return Jorge Messi to Rosario in his final weeks reflected a desire to keep him close to the family home that has remained a touchstone for the player's identity and his charitable work through the Leo Messi Foundation.

Rosario as the family anchor

Beyond his role as a football patriarch, Jorge Messi was known in Argentina for a lower public profile than his son. He appeared in the stands at Camp Nou during his son's Barcelona years, was a regular presence in the mixed zone at major tournaments and was often photographed alongside the player at contract signings, including the high-profile move to Paris Saint-Germain in 2021 and the subsequent switch to Inter Miami in 2023. Those transitions were navigated in close consultation with him.

Lionel Messi's current club, Inter Miami, has not yet announced any official tribute, though tributes from teammates, opponents and federations are expected in the coming days. Argentine football in general is accustomed to marking moments of personal significance for its captain, who remains the central figure of the national team under coach Lionel Scaloni and is widely expected to continue playing at least through the next major tournament cycle.

Tributes expected from the football world

Reporting from Rosario cited by several outlets indicates that funeral arrangements are being handled privately by the family. There was no immediate indication that Lionel Messi would travel to Rosario in the coming days; he was last listed publicly as being in Florida with Inter Miami ahead of the club's regular MLS commitments. Friends of the family described Jorge Messi as having remained engaged with daily life until shortly before his death.

The death brings a formal close to one of the most enduring father-son partnerships in modern sport. For more than two decades, Jorge Messi shaped the business and personal decisions that allowed his son to concentrate on football, from the first contract dispute with Barcelona in the mid-2000s to the image-rights negotiations that accompanied every subsequent transfer. Few figures in the game combined the roles of parent, agent and confidant for as long, or with as much continuity.

Argentina's footballing community is expected to observe a period of respect in the coming week, with clubs across the country likely to hold a minute's silence or wear black armbands in the Argentine first division. Tributes from European clubs that were part of Lionel Messi's career, including Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, are also anticipated, although no such gestures had been confirmed publicly at the time of writing.

The episode closes a chapter that began in Rosario in the late 1980s and ended there more than three decades later. For a family that has guarded its privacy fiercely even amid global fame, the loss of Jorge Messi is both an intimate grief and, inevitably, a public moment for a sport that has long treated the Messis as its own.

The death of a father who doubled as a long-time manager marks a turning point for Lionel Messi on a personal level, and the football world is preparing to acknowledge it in the days ahead.