An Argentine television host mistakenly announced Jorge Messi’s death live on air in June, retracting the claim and apologizing within hours. The false report proved premature by seven weeks. Lionel Messi’s father died Friday night at a hospital in Rosario, Argentina, at age 68, after an illness the family kept undisclosed for months, the Sanatorio Centro hospital and Messi’s boyhood club, Newell’s Old Boys, confirmed.
Jorge spent his final months moving between the Rosario medical center and his home, accompanied by his wife, Celia, and their children Rodrigo, Matias and Maria Sol, the family told Reuters. The hospital said in a statement that, out of respect for the family’s privacy, it would not disclose further details about the medical circumstances of his death. The Messi family first acknowledged Jorge’s declining health in a statement in June, saying only that he was undergoing medical treatment without naming a diagnosis; some reports have since described the illness as cancer, though that has not been confirmed publicly by the family.
Lionel Messi had spent time with his father after this year’s World Cup before rejoining Inter Miami, for whom he returned to action a week ago. He was scheduled to arrive in Rosario on a private flight from Miami around 8 p.m. local time Saturday to attend a private wake, a source close to the family said. Jorge’s remains are due to be transferred Sunday to the El Prado private cemetery in Perez, a town near Rosario, according to local media reports. Inter Miami is scheduled to play Monterrey in the Leagues Cup on Saturday and had not immediately responded to a request for comment on Messi’s status for the match.
The illness had shadowed Messi’s run through this year’s World Cup, where his emotions became a subject of public speculation. He broke down in tears celebrating his opening goal in a hat-trick against Algeria in Argentina’s tournament opener on June 16, days before the family’s first statement about Jorge’s condition. At a press conference afterward, Messi said the tears stemmed from “something unrelated to football,” describing having gone through “a few difficult, complicated days” without elaborating further at the time.
Jorge’s influence on his son’s career began decades earlier. He relocated the family from Rosario to Barcelona when Lionel was 13 so the teenager could join the Spanish club’s youth academy, and he negotiated what has become known in Argentine football lore as the “napkin contract” that formalized Barcelona’s commitment to cover the boy’s growth-hormone treatment in exchange for signing him.
He went on to serve for years as his son’s agent and closest business adviser, involved in contract negotiations through Messi’s moves from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain and then to Inter Miami. Messi has said in past remarks that he always sought his father’s approval, from childhood onward, and that he made a habit of asking Jorge’s opinion of his performance after nearly every match.
That closeness carried legal complications. A Barcelona court convicted both Jorge and Lionel Messi in July 2016 on three counts of tax fraud, related to roughly 4.1 million euros in image-rights income routed through shell companies in Belize, Uruguay and Switzerland between 2007 and 2009 to avoid Spanish taxes. Both received suspended sentences and fines, a verdict Spain’s Supreme Court upheld on appeal in 2017 while converting the sentences fully into financial penalties. A separate Spanish investigation opened in 2019 into Jorge, Lionel and the Leo Messi Foundation over suspected fraud and money laundering was dismissed in 2021.
Tributes arrived from across international football following confirmation of Jorge’s death. FC Barcelona, where Messi built the bulk of his career from his senior debut in 2004 through 2021, said in a statement that the club thanked Jorge “for his commitment to our club, for entrusting us with the beginning and the most glorious years of his son Leo’s football career.”
The Argentine Football Association said it stood in solidarity with the family, sending what it called its most heartfelt embrace, and announced a minute of silence would be observed at matches across all of the country’s divisions Saturday, with players, coaches and referees wearing black armbands. Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Messi’s youth club Newell’s Old Boys also issued condolences.
