Lionel Messi

Local soccer authorities in Beijing and Hangzhou, China, announced this weekend that they would no longer host friendly games scheduled for March featuring Argentina’s national team, apparently part of the ongoing backlash in China against Argentine star Lionel Messi for being injured during a game in Hong Kong.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Lionel Messi led his Argentina lineup off the field and into the locker rooms because of a brawl between rival fans in Brazil, delaying the start of their South American World Cup qualifier by 27 minutes Tuesday at the Maracana Stadium.

Argentine soccer player Lionel Messi, whose team is the reigning FIFA World Cup champion, played an exhibition match alongside his team in Beijing, China, on Friday – genocidal dictator Xi Jinping’s 70th birthday.

The international soccer organization FIFA confirmed on Thursday that it had launched an investigation into Turkish celebrity chef Nusret Gökçe, popularly known as “Salt Bae.”

LUSAIL, Qatar (AP) — Lionel Messi’s once-in-a-generation career is complete. The Argentina superstar is finally a World Cup champion.

LUSAIL, Qatar (AP) — Saudi Arabia scored one of the biggest World Cup upsets ever by beating Lionel Messi’s Argentina 2-1 on Tuesday.

U.S. women’s soccer team co-captain Megan Rapinoe is begging prominent male soccer stars to must begin agitating for political causes.

TEL AVIV – Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan on Tuesday called on the International Olympic Committee to follow in FIFA’s footsteps and ban the head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, Jibril Rajoub, for “inciting violence.” 

The head of the Palestinian football association pledged to appeal Monday against FIFA’s 12-month ban for comments made about Lionel Messi, calling it an “unjust and political decision.”

Geneva – FIFA on Friday hit the Palestinian Football Association chief with a year-long “match” ban after he called for protests against Lionel Messi over plans for Argentina to play Israel in Jerusalem.

TEL AVIV – Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Saturday mocked soccer player Lionel Messi for missing a crucial World Cup penalty, saying it was the result of Argentina’s last minute withdrawal from a warm-up game in Israel.

JERUSALEM — The sports-crazed nation of Israel was in uproar Wednesday over Argentina’s abrupt cancellation of a World Cup warmup match following pro-Palestinian protests, with some of the country’s leaders accusing Lionel Messi and his teammates of caving to terrorism.

The head of the Palestinian football federation is calling on Arab and Muslim sports fans to burn photos and T-shirts of Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi if he attends a friendly match between Argentina and Israel next weekend.

Israel will host Argentina for a friendly match on June 9, days before the start of the World Cup in Russia, Israel’s football federation said on Thursday.

An Islamic State (ISIS) propaganda wing has published a chilling image of Argentine soccer icon Lionel Messi crying blood, intended to intimidate fans planning to travel to next year’s FIFA World Cup in Moscow.

Lionel Messi, one of the world’s most celebrated footballers, arrived in Egypt this week as part of a government campaign to resurrect the medical tourism industry, a vital source of revenue that has dwindled since the 2011 Arab Spring revolution and the political instability that ensued.

A five-year-old Afghan boy who became famous online after photos surfaced of him playing soccer in a Lionel Messi “jersey” made out of a garbage bag has fled Afghanistan for Pakistan, after months of threats from jihadi groups.

Considered by many to be the greatest soccer player of all time, Pele contends today’s footballers come up short compared to those of the past.

After President Obama let slip that his daughters were hoping to meet soccer star Lionel Messi, the player said even though the meeting didn’t work out he’d be “proud” to meet Obama and his family.

A 28-year-old Argentine agricultural engineer, recently liberated from abduction likely committed by nomadic criminal groups in Nigeria, told his family to thank soccer superstar Lionel Messi for saving his life. The athlete’s name, claims Santiago López Menéndez, was the only way he could communicate to his captors that he was Argentine and not American.