"Messi is protected by the Jewish lobby" — that was an Algerian broadcaster's explanation for a missed penalty call during Argentina's 3-0 World Cup win over Algeria. It was absurd. It was also the latest chapter in a genuinely unusual story about how one footballer became a geopolitical lightning rod without ever really trying to be one.
Messi has spent his career avoiding politics. No firebrand speeches, no controversial allegiances, no ideological flag-planting. And yet his name keeps surfacing in Middle East discourse, in BDS campaigns, in antisemitic rants, and in FIFA disciplinary hearings. Here's how it all actually happened.
A Decade of Intersections
It starts mild enough. In 2013, Messi sent a video message to the Argentine Maccabiah delegation before they headed to Israel for the Jewish Olympics. Two years earlier, he'd joined a campaign commemorating the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires — the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentine history, which killed 85 people. These weren't provocations. They were gestures from someone connected to his country's Jewish community.
Then came the Barcelona visit to Israel in 2013, which included skills clinics for Israeli and Palestinian children, a stop at the Western Wall, and meetings with President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. Barcelona were on a "peace tour." Messi was along for it. That Wall visit, specifically, has been cited against him repeatedly ever since.
By 2016, Egyptian Football Federation spokesman Azmi Mogahed was on live television saying: "I know he's Jewish, he donated to Israel and visited the Wailing Wall and whatever... Egypt's poor don't need help from someone with Jewish or Zionist citizenship." The trigger? Messi had donated a pair of boots to a charity in Egypt.
Canceled Matches, Suspensions, and a Kibbutz Survivor
The 2018 friendly cancellation between Argentina and Israel is where things escalated into genuine football politics. BDS pressure worked — the match was called off. Palestinian Football Association chief Jibril Rajoub had urged supporters to burn Messi's jersey if the game went ahead. FIFA suspended him for a year. A year later, Argentina played in Tel Aviv anyway, in front of 29,000 fans including Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. Messi scored.
In 2020, he signed a three-year brand ambassador deal with OrCam, an Israeli company making assistive technology for the visually impaired. He'd previously worked with Tel Aviv-based Sirin Labs in 2017. These are commercial decisions, not political statements — but they've consistently been read as the latter by critics.
Then came October 7, 2023. Esther Cunio, a 90-year-old resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz, was confronted by a Hamas militant during the attack. She asked him if he liked soccer. "I'm from where Messi is from," she told him — she's Argentine. She credits that exchange with saving her life. She later appealed publicly to Messi to help rescue her grandson.
- 2013: Video message to Argentine Maccabiah delegation; AMIA commemoration in 2011
- 2013: Western Wall visit with Barcelona on a peace tour
- 2014: Supported Pope Francis's Rome peace match (missed through injury)
- 2016: Denounced as "Jewish" by Egyptian FA official after boot donation
- 2018: Argentina-Israel friendly canceled following BDS campaign
- 2018: Palestinian FA chief suspended by FIFA for threatening to burn Messi's jersey
- 2019: Argentina played in Tel Aviv; Messi scored in front of a sold-out crowd
- 2020: Signed as brand ambassador for Israeli tech firm OrCam
- 2023: Kibbutz survivor credits Messi connection with surviving October 7
- 2025: Algerian broadcaster blames "Jewish lobby" for World Cup refereeing decisions
With Argentina now in the World Cup quarterfinals against Switzerland, some pro-Palestinian voices online have framed supporting Switzerland as the anti-Zionist choice. Many Israelis are backing Argentina. Messi, who has never made a political statement about any of this, is somehow the central figure in a debate he's never entered.
That might be the strangest part of the whole story. He visited a wall. He took some contracts. He scored a goal in Tel Aviv. And 12 years later, geopolitical allegiances are being arranged around his quarterfinal draw.
