{"id":32331,"date":"2026-04-17T19:42:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T17:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=32331"},"modified":"2026-04-17T19:42:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T17:42:28","slug":"messi-steps-into-club-ownership-with-spanish-side-cornella","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/messi-steps-into-club-ownership-with-spanish-side-cornella\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi steps into club ownership with Spanish side Cornell\u00e0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Football legend Lionel Messi is making a move off the pitch after taking ownership of Spanish lower-division club UE Cornell\u00e0.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The club, which competes in Spain\u2019s fifth tier, confirmed the takeover, marking a new chapter in Messi\u2019s career as he begins to invest in football beyond playing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The move shows a growing trend among top players to build long-term business interests in the sport. It follows similar steps by Cristiano Ronaldo, who has also invested in a Spanish club.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13680,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-32331","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Lionel Messi is taking ownership of Spanish lower-division club UE Cornell\u00e0","published_date":"2026-04-17 19:42:20","news_description":"Lionel Messi is taking ownership of Spanish lower-division club UE Cornell\u00e0","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32332,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32331\/revisions\/32332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}