Lionel Messi has only added to Beijing’s displeasure at Argentina
- China’s cancellation of the Argentine football team’s mainland tour may have more to do with new president Javier Milei than the star player
Everybody hates Lionel Messi now but it’s not clear why China needed to cancel the Argentina games in Hangzhou and Beijing next month. For sure we should blame Inter Miami and match organiser Tatler Asia for the fiasco in Hong Kong, but his national team? At most, Messi should be declared persona non grata but his team from Argentina should be able to play on the mainland.
The Hangzhou Sports Bureau said in an official statement that the conditions for hosting an international match were not met in light of the “reasons that everyone knows”. Another match between the Ivory Coast and Argentina has also been cancelled in Beijing.
What, because of Messi? I could think of some other reasons at work, such as the South American country’s recently elected President Javier Milei. Unlike the previous China-friendly government of his centre-left predecessor Alberto Fernandez, the far-right libertarian economist and self-styled wild man of Argentine politics has been rather rude to Beijing ever since he launched his presidential campaign.
He once wielded on stage a powered-on chainsaw and liked to rally the crowds like a deranged punk rocker. He has also repeatedly got on Beijing’s wrong side.
Under Fernandez, Argentina was one of six countries formally invited to join the Brics group of developing economies. But one of the first things Milei did in office was to decline joining the bloc made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. While the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Ethiopia and Iran have become members, Saudi Arabia is also having second thoughts and has been stalling.
One of Brics’ attractions to many developing countries has been their attempt to de-dollarise and encourage trade and commerce among member states using their own national currencies – or a common digital currency currently being developed. By contrast, while on the campaign trail, Milei had threatened to replace the Argentine peso with the US dollar as the official currency. Argentina has been competing with Venezuela and Lebanon to be running the world’s highest inflation. So the peso replacement idea was not completely crazy, but he has since backed off from it.
Diplomatically, though, he has unmistakably tilted back towards the West, especially Washington, since taking power. In a speech given at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he denounced collectivism and trumpeted free-market capitalism, and warned that the West was in danger of abandoning its own core values. It’s hard not to think he was making a dig at China, which under President Xi Jinping has revived some socialist governing principles and communist party discipline.
But do all these really have to do with the mainland’s response to the Messi fiasco in Hong Kong? Actually it’s not really a stretch. Beijing is almost certain to consider it a serious loss of face, especially considering the arrogant manner in which the match’s organisers conducted themselves afterwards, including a no-questions-allowed press conference held in Hong Kong.
The fact that Messi played half an hour in Japan, an arch-geopolitical rival, was adding insult to injury. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government has made itself look completely incompetent and impotent.
Someone has to pay. Even after Tatler Asia offered to hand back half of the ticket prices to angry fans, the damage had been done.
Sports are always political in China, and that applies not only to mega events such as the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympics, but any sporting event that attracts global attention. If Messi’s bungled tour in Hong Kong didn’t attract international headlines before, it certainly does now.
Not too long ago, it was called ping-pong diplomacy. Now that China is much richer, it’s “every sport” diplomacy. The fact that many Hong Kong people are diehard football fans and are now livid means mainland authorities likely see this as a chance to play to an audience.
Mainland-Hong Kong relations have been terribly rocky recently. Here’s a chance to prove they have our back. Argentina is a cost-free target.
