Messi (86 page)

There were other image-damaging incidents in that summer of 2013.

At a time when he had already conquered the hearts of Argentinians, after another year of records, titles and praise, Leo suddenly started to appear on the covers of gossip magazines and in the non-sports sections of newspapers. Let’s look at some examples: a man spills the beans on how, supposedly, a few years earlier, Messi had defied Guardiola by drinking a can of some soft drink that had been forbidden, and challenges anyone who doubts his word to take him to court, thereby suggesting that his source was a member of that very squad. Both Leo and Pep, consulted for this book, deny the incident took place, but a denial does fewer rounds than a story about a supposed confrontation between the world’s greatest footballer and the world’s greatest coach.

Another absurd story came to light: an Argentinian magazine published photos from a party in Las Vegas in which Leo is seen burying his face in the large breasts of a stripper; many are unaware that those images were fake, they only remember Leo’s innocent face looking at the camera. That summer a book came out which, according to the Messis, told lies about Pep and Leo, including supposed details over the payment for his hormonal treatment, but with
such carefully chosen words that the Messis cannot file a complaint, as they would like to have done.

And then the most serious of all: the Spanish financial authorities accused the family of tax evasion.

Leo’s image was being assailed from all sides.

Leo did not know about it but it was published that the police had been heavy-handed and that, when it had reached Leo’s ears, he had decided to ask to be substituted in the second half and left without even taking a shower. Not true, but the denial coming from the Messi camp did not fill the same newspaper inches.

The following friendly at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was cancelled generating a barrage of accusations. Leo decided not to participate because of the extortionate ticket prices for what was supposed to be a charitable match, but more importantly what was not said is that the promoter, who had organized the travel expenses and fees of the players, did not get enough money from the company that sold the tickets for the event. Somebody tried to be too clever but Messi was blamed after 50,000 tickets had been purchased. Leo expressed on Facebook his ‘disappointment with the organization’, but his image was tarnished once again.

What was going on? The Madrid press suggested that the real Messi was at last being seen. Some people around Leo also began asking themselves if his support for the Catalan language at a Turkish Airlines event was the ‘beginning of the end’ of his love affair with the Spanish people.

The world has surely not become tired of always seeing the same face, the same winners, has it? Now, with Neymar at Barcelona, sponsors and public alike have a new option, which is attractive for that very reason – it presents a different face. Furthermore, Nike was looking to make Neymar its ambassador for its Brazil World Cup campaign, and Leo, although he once wore the very same brand, now wears Adidas. Sponsors, especially the big ones, do not forget such disloyalty.

Leo’s entourage is small and quite low key with regard to commercial interests. Until now they have considered that this was in the best interests of an individual who only wanted to play football and who was completely disinterested in the world of sponsorship and commerce. Consequently, when Leo felt under fire that summer, those
looking after his interests struggled to manage the different crises.

‘We have been a family business for some time, but the difference is that the earnings are not for the family, but for Lionel,’ explains Jorge Messi in Sique Rodríguez’s book
Educados para ganar
(‘Educated to Win’). ‘It is a way of defending his future. It is his business. Everything revolves around him. Everything is in his name. It is our way of protecting him.’ His father is effectively his agent, his brother Rodrigo takes care of his diary and, together with former Barcelona employee Pablo Negre, he organises events and media deals for him. His mother Celia and his brother Matías take care of the Leo Messi Foundation and other personal and professional affairs in Rosario. They have a few lawyers and little else.

‘Messi’s entourage is much more complex than Ronaldinho or Maradona’s in terms of relationships with the press,’ says Ramón Besa of
El País
. Messi would speak through his agent, Jorge Cyterszpiler or his assistant, Jorge Blanco. Ronaldinho, who kept a certain level of inaccessibility, had family members working as spokesmen. ‘But the people who surround Messi are a mystery, because he is like a child … Who is Messi? To whom do you have to speak to find out what he thinks? His father? Antonella? Getting to Messi is very complex,’ concludes Besa.

Besa recalls that he asked an Italian journalist who interviewed Messi in Barcelona how it had gone: ‘badly, because in order to interview Messi you prepare yourself in the same way that a defender prepares to play against him, and you don’t know how, but he ends up outwitting you; in other words I didn’t get anything out of the ten questions I had asked.’ The journalist is referring here to Leo and his family’s defensive attitude. Messi doesn’t see an interview as a way of connecting with his fans, but a check-up on him as a person. In Messi’s world the word ‘you already know what Messi is like’ is just another way of shutting the door on the interference. His world is a closed one, almost like that of a child, protected by his own family. And he defends that, it suits him, it fits his personality. Furthermore, that mistrust may stem from those people who did get close to him and who ended up trying to take advantage of him. Some of them have been taken to court.

‘Javier Marías says in
Salvajes y sentimentales
[‘Wild and Sentimental’] that football takes us back to our childhood, but the
moment you become a commercial product as an adult, you can no longer carry on behaving as if you were a child,’ concludes Besa, the most perceptive of the journalists covering Barcelona. ‘Has anyone thought about this, about what the Messi world means? I think that they live off the positive dynamic, off the goals, but maybe one day he will not score as many, maybe one day someone will make him realise that no one is writing his side of the story any more.’

Leo’s image is linked solely to his performance, to his results on the pitch. He has never wanted to sell anything that does not fit that
natural
profile. He does not have a marketing policy, like David Beckham for example, who exemplifies the opposite extreme, in which image is everything.

Esteve Calzada, publicity expert and ex-Barcelona marketing director, gives a clear example of the difference in his book
Show Me the Money
: ‘When Lionel Messi was called up to the stage to receive his second Ballon d’Or at the FIFA gala in December 2010, he was so surprised that he didn’t know what to say or how to appear in front of the microphones, a clear demonstration that he had nothing prepared. Nor did he acknowledge his supporting team-mates from that year, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta. The following year, on winning the prize again on the same stage, it was very clear that he had conferred with his advisers and prepared a speech in which thank-yous and a special trophy dedication to his team-mate Xavi, who had been nominated again, were to the fore.’

Although Leo acts as if he is the best, he never speaks about himself as such; he always refers to the football team. ‘They have always wanted to be responsible for Leo’s low-profile image, even if they have been able to recruit one of the big advertising agencies,’ says ex-Barcelona financial vice-president Ferrán Soriano. ‘It is like applying a defence mechanism: it’s an “I don’t want anything.” This has the advantage that nobody screws you; and the disadvantage, you don’t maximise the value. He earns twenty something million euros for playing football and for advertising it must be around fifteen or twenty. If you receive forty million a year, why should you want more?’

The Messis are scrupulous with costs. They have a conservative, financial mentality, they don’t waste much, and they track every
euro that is spent. ‘They know they can earn more, but it doesn’t interest them,’ concludes Soriano.

Until now Leo has been the face of soft drinks, airlines (the advertisement with Kobe Bryant for Turkish Airlines has exceeded 105 million hits on the internet, one of the ten most viewed in 2012), watches, sliced bread, sportswear and even a Japanese cosmetics brand in whose commercial he had to say a few words in Japanese. And according to a
liga
BBVA report carried out by Brand Value Solutions, Messi had an 11 per cent media presence compared to the rest of the players; Ronaldo’s was 9.2 per cent. Now that Argentinians have placed him on a pedestal, if he wants to prevent Spanish disapproval from growing, he should focus more on his image. Of course Neymar and Ronaldo have more than twenty professionals looking after their respective images; it is all a system of communication aimed at presenting their best profiles to the world. But is that the solution?

In 2013 the Messi family employed the biggest advertising agency in the world to protect Leo and look for ways of exploiting his personal image.

Another side of this parallel universe to football with which Messi has to fight, whether he likes it or not, is in his dress sense. His friend Domenico Dolce, for whom he has even modelled Dolce & Gabbana clothing, has plenty to say about this. As we have seen, he has worn D&G at the Ballons d’Or and has been a regular customer for some time. Maybe he was chosen as a media icon because he more resembles the man on the street rather than the one with the perfectly toned body typified by many other footballers. Although Leo prefers a casual look, his fashion brand has given him a more sophisticated touch, and the fact that he wore a polka-dot dinner suit to pick up his fourth Ballon d’Or says a lot about the way he has evolved in this regard. Furthermore, if he, with his fairly average physique, was bold enough to wear such clothes, others might be encouraged to do the same. That is what advertising and icons are all about.

What is clear is that Leo has left behind the boy who went on stage on his twentieth birthday, to play instruments and cheer on the public, so that the
cumbia
group that was playing would carry on. Incidentally, it was the same band that composed ‘El pibe de oro’ (‘The Golden Boy’) in homage to the Argentinian.

Not only did he leave that period behind, but he was learning to protect himself. And he had to do so swiftly, because that confusing summer of 2013 brought with it serious accusations of fiscal fraud, a complex situation in which the Messis are claiming protection from civil laws which supposedly approve what the tax advisers suggested to them.

When his problems with the taxman surfaced, two situations occurred which reflect the state of our society. On the one hand, a high percentage of Spanish and international (mainly sporting) press decided that he was guilty until proven innocent, and, on the other hand, the news reached non-footballing corners, too.

Nothing quite justifies the innocence with which Leo’s family followed the financial and tax advice they were given, but it goes without saying that everything should be put into context.

In 2013, the Agencia Tributaria instructed inspectors to take action against celebrities they believed to be tax-dodging, and thus acquired valuable media coverage. And so the chef Sergi Arola, the heiress Liliana Godia and Leo Messi came under scrutiny and were accused of suspected tax breaches. The objective was to boost the authorities’ damaged image; they had been accused of being too lenient with famous people. They tried to make an example of Leo, and the others accused, in a period of financial crisis in which people judged this type of behaviour as reprehensible.

‘They did it to me in ’79,’ explains Johan Cruyff to
La Vanguardia
newspaper. ‘When you are a public personality, they use celebrities so that people are scared. And Messi is one of them. I can’t imagine Leo is responsible because he knows as much about the tax office as I do, which is zero. Therefore, it is the people around him who manage these things. The press and government use him to say “look who we’ve caught”. They do it to set an example. They also did it to me and I had to wait nine years before they said I was innocent.’

In football, as in all other professions, everyone looks for a way to pay less tax, and the management of image rights is the official method for clubs and footballers to save costs. Elite players, who are in the highest tax bracket, prefer their clubs to convert part of their salaries into image rights, which are then paid to a company set up by the player. The tax liability is lower. That way, taxes are ‘avoided’ rather than evaded.

In Leo’s case, his contract assigns 85 per cent of the money as salary, and the remaining 15 per cent to image rights, which is what Spanish law allows. In general, Barcelona have never wanted to implicate themselves in any business related to his image. According to the club it is a permanent source of conflict since players are usually not very willing to give up part of the money earned for commercial deals. Real Madrid see it differently: they keep 50 per cent of player earnings in this regard. Barcelona demand a percentage of the player’s image rights and Leo can do what he wants with the rest.

Going back to the accusations of fraud, the idea of lying to the taxman may seem incomprehensible to northern European, Anglo-Saxon sensibilities, but it seems to be an inherent part of Latin culture, which grew up with reading classics such as
El lazarillo de Tormes
or Quevedo’s
El Buscón
. In Spain or Argentina, tax evasion is not as widely frowned upon as in other countries, perhaps because of the lack of confidence in the authorities and the bad example they set, especially in recent years, where corruption cases against political and corporate bodies seem to be multiplying. In other words, ‘If they do it, why should I or my cousin or neighbour not do it?’

Of course nobody is blameless: in England in 2010, dozens of British footballers received letters from the Inland Revenue notifying them that an investigation into tax evasion was being opened. The person who does not attempt it is rare indeed, and the Messis have been hunted.