{"id":4796,"date":"2024-02-11T21:37:59","date_gmt":"2024-02-11T20:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idrottsforum.org\/forumbloggen\/?p=4796"},"modified":"2024-02-12T10:07:54","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T09:07:54","slug":"lionel-messi-the-man-who-fell-to-earth-in-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idrottsforum.org\/forumbloggen\/lionel-messi-the-man-who-fell-to-earth-in-hong-kong\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Messi: The man who fell to Earth in Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Lionel Messi after scoring the opening goal against Nigeria, 26 June 2018. (Photo: \u041a\u0438\u0440\u0438\u043b\u043b \u0412\u0435\u043d\u0435\u0434\u0438\u043a\u0442\u043e\u0432. The image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Lionel Messi failed to take the field<\/a> in a pre-season exhibition football (soccer) match in Hong Kong, the furious reaction exposed the risks of staging celebrity-centred sports events without the main act.<\/p>\n

Messi\u2019s presence had been heavily promoted in the lead-up to the match between U.S. Major League Soccer club Inter Miami, co-owned by another football celebrity, David Beckham, and a local league XI.<\/p>\n

Some of the almost 40,000 crowd at Hong Kong Stadium had travelled from as far away as Australia and bought 1,000 $AU tickets for one reason alone \u2013 to see the world\u2019s best player in what a football purist would describe as a meaningless match.<\/p>\n

Messi sat on the bench alongside another famous footballer, Luis Su\u00e1rez.\u00a0 Both were carrying injuries.\u00a0 When it became clear that neither, especially Messi, would play for even a token few minutes, the response was apoplectic.<\/p>\n

David Beckham, no stranger to public hostility as the recent Netflix documentary<\/a> graphically showed, was roundly booed<\/a> as he tried to thank his hosts.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, both Messi and Su\u00e1rez played just three days later in a match against Vissel Kobe<\/a> in Japan.\u00a0 This fired up criticism from the Hong Kong government and social media platforms like Weibo, while the aggressively nationalist state organ Global Times<\/em> sensed an anti-Chinese conspiracy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wrong Moves<\/h3>\n

What lessons can we derive from the Messi Hong Kong fiasco?<\/p>\n

Football, the global<\/a> game, is hyper-commercial at its apex.\u00a0 It has star clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool and Real Madrid who call themselves \u2018brands\u2019 and can afford star players.\u00a0\u00a0 Commercial machines are intolerant of down time, so despite the very congested fixture lists of the top clubs most of them engage in \u2018off season\u2019 travel in markets far away from home.<\/p>\n

The principal intention of these exercises is exposure and promotion, with football fans and fellow travellers drawn to matches of little consequence by the event buzz.\u00a0 It is disappointing if some of the most prominent players don\u2019t appear, but there are usually enough to spread around and the aura of the club help mitigate buyer\u2019s regret.<\/p>\n

Some clubs that are not established brands also engage in international promotional tours if they have one or two celebrities like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, currently plying his trade at Al-Nassr in the extravagantly rich Saudi Pro League.<\/p>\n

There is an obvious risk, as in Hong Kong, where a club is not legendary and consists, in harsh entrepreneurial terms, of a leading player or two supported by a cast of \u2018bit\u2019 players.\u00a0 When the main attractions don\u2019t appear, it\u2019s hardly surprising that the crowd feels cheated.<\/p>\n

This audience experience is more like going to see a live rock band only to find the figurehead lead singer or guitarist isn\u2019t on stage.\u00a0 Or at the theatre where, although there might be murmurs when it\u2019s announced that the understudy has replaced the star actor, loud demands for refunds and abusive cries from the stalls are unlikely.<\/p>\n

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David Beckham, August 2023. (Shutterstock\/YES Market Media)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

David Beckham has been here before.\u00a0 When in 2007 his LA Galaxy team came to Australia<\/a> and played Sydney FC, he was as much the face of the event as Lionel Messi in Hong Kong. \u2018Becks\u2019 was also carrying an injury, and it was agreed that if he didn\u2019t play the event would be cancelled or postponed.<\/p>\n

He did play, limping from an existing and\/or match-acquired injury and treating the 80,000 crowd to one of his trademark \u2018bend it like Beckham\u2019 goals.\u00a0 The main point is not whether Beckham played well, but that he played at all.<\/p>\n

This is not an entirely new phenomenon.\u00a0 In 1973, I was in a crowd of almost 38,000 to watch my modestly credentialled hometown club, Plymouth Argyle, play an exhibition game against Brazilian visitors Santos<\/a>.\u00a0 We were all there to watch one player, the bigger-than-Messi of the day Edson Arantes do Nascimento, more commonly known as Pel\u00e9.<\/p>\n

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Pel\u00e9 with Brazil 1970 (Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was much anxiety that Pel\u00e9 would not turn up, but he did, scoring a penalty in the process.\u00a0 Mass thumbs down and chants of \u2018refund\u2019 were avoided.<\/p>\n

Such money-motivated exercises have proliferated and become more sophisticated since Santos\u2019 pioneering international tours with their most precious asset.\u00a0 But today\u2019s tours are no less reliant on the fragile footballing body.<\/p>\n

Human footballer or replicant?<\/h3>\n

It can be hard to remember, especially when watching their video highlight reels \u2013 such as one entitled Lionel Messi Super Human Moments<\/a> \u2013 that a gal\u00e1ctico<\/em> footballer is made of flesh and blood.\u00a0 Most accumulate a range of injuries in professional playing careers that, however lavishly rewarded, are over at an age when most workers are still seeking advancement in their less adrenaline- and capital-fuelled jobs.<\/p>\n

At the height of their powers, male football stars resemble Roy, the physically-enhanced, late-model replicant in the sci-fi film Blade Runner<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 When rendered inert, these men who fell to earth mutate into malfunctioning humanoids, vulnerable to criticisms of arrogance, indolence and \u2018obscene\u2019 wealth.<\/p>\n

While hardly casting them as victims, it is possible to sympathise with supreme athletes whose capacity to perform in significant competitive sport contests is curtailed by being over-played in travelling circus matches, performing to order for many people who are not even regular football fans.<\/p>\n

The Hong Kong hassle served to underline the brute fact that Messi is a very scarce, perishable \u2018commodity\u2019 with an eventual use-by date.\u00a0 Despite the reputational damage and financial risk, football fans will still try to catch him when they can, thinking mainly of boasting rights that can be asserted in the present and stored until after his retirement.<\/p>\n

This is not the first Lionel Messi scandal.\u00a0 He has, after all, been convicted of tax fraud<\/a> in Spain.\u00a0 But his legal withdrawal of labour in Hong Kong has received more concentrated attention, guilty of \u2018chucking a sickie\u2019 in full view of a big crowd and the media.<\/p>\n

\n

Originally published on openforum.com.au<\/a>, February 10, 20234
\n<\/strong><\/span>Copyright \u00a9 David Rowe 2024<\/strong>
\nEmail: d.rowe@westernsydney.edu.au<\/a>
\nTwitter: @rowe_david<\/a>
\nWebsite: https:\/\/westernsydney.edu.au\/ics\/people\/researchers\/david_rowe<\/a><\/p>\n

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