The writer is an FT columnist and co-author of ‘Soccernomics’
PERSON IN THE NEWS - JUNE 14, 2013 7:02 PM
Lionel Messi: Simply the best
The world’s greatest footballer has been pitched into tax problems, writes Simon Kuper
When Lionel Messi was 13 years old, his family left the provincial Argentine town of Rosario and flew weeping to Barcelona. It was the boy’s first flight. Arriving in the Catalan capital, the Messis were surprised to discover that the city was on the sea.
Messi had migrated because he was a footballing prodigy who was just 1.40 metres tall, or 4ft 7in. To grow to a normal height, he needed hormone treatment costing $900 a month. His steelworker father could not afford it. No Argentine club would fund it. But a cousin in Catalonia had alerted FC Barcelona. In a trial match for Barça, Messi scored five goals. His father signed a contract on a napkin. Barça paid for hormones and, every night in Catalonia, the boy injected them into his feet. He grew to 1.69 metres. Today, at 25, he is the best footballer on earth – perhaps the best ever.
Yet this week a blot appeared on his CV. A Spanish financial crimes prosecutor lodged a legal filing accusing Messi and his father of committing tax fraud worth more than €4m. The family denies it. Is Messi the latest global brand – after Apple, Starbucks, Google,Amazon and Bayern Munich’s president Uli Hoeness – to have his reputation sullied by alleged tax-dodging?
There are great born footballers, and great made footballers. Messi is both. He is an individual genius in the tradition of the Argentine pibe, or “boy”, the spontaneous child dribbler. But Barcelona’s celebrated youth academy, the Masía, taught him the European virtues of passing and collective play.
Almost all great athletes nowadays grow up shielded from normal life. They are encouraged to concentrate on sport, while the entourage – a mix of family and longtime confidants – runs everything else. The entourage finds advisers to handle money. These advisers are often chosen more for their charm and proximity than their expertise. Messi’s father said of the allegations: “It is all a mistake. You have to speak about this to the tax experts and lawyers who need to clear it up. I don’t understand what is going on. I don’t manage these matters, I am resident in Argentina.”
The court filing says the Messis hid “significant income” from image rights by channelling earnings through tax havens such as Uruguay and Belize. It says the player and his father displayed “total opaqueness” towards the Spanish authorities.
Whatever the truth, one difference stands out between Messi and someone such as Hoeness, a savvy businessman who understood the benefits of a Swiss bank account. Messi is a footballer only. Not much seems to go on beneath that little boy’s haircut. He has never been heard to say an interesting sentence. An uncharismatic introvert, he lacks the wild poetry of his great Argentine forebear, Diego Maradona. His home life with girlfriend and baby son bores the public. Messi is interesting only as a footballer.
He sees the field more clearly than even spectators high in the stands. Dribbling with three-quarter steps, he can change direction faster than any opponent. Being tiny, he has superior balance. And, unlike some great dribblers, he is focused on goal. In 2012 he scored a record (and almost inconceivable) 91 goals in 69 games. He has been voted European footballer of the year four times running, another record. He has won two European Champions Leagues and five Spanish titles with Barcelona. When he met Francis, the new football-loving Argentine Pope in April, it was unclear who was more in awe of whom.
More than that, Messi makes the world happier. On the field, he resembles a child at play. When he receives a ball and sets off running, letting it trot alongside him, he looks like a boy out with his pet dog. Where Cristiano Ronaldo, the world’s second-best player, scowls perennially, the Argentine looks blank or smiles. There is nothing cynical about his play. He seldom fouls; refuses to be substituted, even in pettifogging games; and continues chasing around long after victory is sealed – which is how he got to 91 goals. We live in the age of Messi, and perhaps the best way to spend it is to watch his every match.
Messi proves his quality in public every week. That sets him apart within the global elite. One constant during these years of crisis has been the tumbling of reputations. People at the top turn out to be frauds: traders book huge “profits” that end up destroying their banks; chief executives appear on magazine covers one moment and in the dock the next; celebrated athletes are busted for drugs (no drug could help anyone dribble like Messi). David Cameron might not have become UK prime minister had his rich parents not sent him to Eton. Messi is a rare member of the one per cent who indisputably got there on merit. Others have feet of clay; he has feet of gold. Consequently, few complain about his earnings, which Forbes magazine estimates at $41.3m this year. His wealth is generally considered deserved.
Still, even Messi has things to prove this year. Barcelona – Europe’s pre-eminent team in the Messi era – were humiliated by Bayern Munich in the Champions League semifinal. The player’s challenge is to return Barça to the top.
He has most to prove in his own country, however. Though he has hung on to his Rosario accent, he is not beloved by Argentines, who often dismiss him as spiritually Spanish. He has been accused of not singing the national anthem. Despite those 91 goals, he finished third in the vote for Argentine sportsman of 2012. He has won nothing with Argentina’s full national team (though he led a youth side to Olympic gold in 2008). Some say he shines for Barcelona thanks chiefly to brilliant teammates – most of whom, playing for Spain, became European and world champions without him.
By convention, great footballers prove themselves at world cups. If Messi leads Argentina to glory in Brazil next year, most people would agree he is the best ever. No tax scandal would diminish that.
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