{"id":41939,"date":"2026-08-09T10:44:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T08:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=41939"},"modified":"2026-08-09T10:44:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T08:44:58","slug":"father-of-soccer-star-lionel-messi-dies-at-68-in-argentina","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/father-of-soccer-star-lionel-messi-dies-at-68-in-argentina\/","title":{"rendered":"Father of soccer star Lionel Messi dies at 68 in Argentina"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\">Jorge Messi, the father of soccer star Lionel Messi has passed away at the age of 68 at a medical clinic in the Argentine city of Rosario after a long illness, the Argentine footballer\u2019s family confirmed to\u00a0<i>Reuters<\/i>.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Jorge spent his final months alternating between a medical center in Rosario and his home, accompanied by his wife Celia and his children Rodrigo,the family said.<\/div>\n<div>Lionel Messi spent time with his father after the World Cup before rejoining his club, Inter Miami, for whom he returned to action a week ago.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>Jorge closely accompanied his son Lionel throughout his career, beginning with his early years at Barcelona.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>He acted as a crucial pillar of support and for several years, served as his representative.<\/div>\n<div>\u201cI always needed my dad\u2019s approval, ever since I was a kid. After every match, I\u2019d ask him what he thought of how I played,\u201d the global soccer star said previously.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>During the World Cup, the captain of the Argentine national team experienced mixed emotions after scoring a hat trick in the opening match against Algeria, breaking down in tears while celebrating his first goal.<\/div>\n<div>Later, at a press conference, Lionel explained that his tears were due to something unrelated to football after going through a few difficult, complicated days.<\/div>\n<div>Days later, the family issued a statement regarding Jorge\u2019s \u201chealth situation\u201d, informing the public that he was undergoing medical treatment.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":41940,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-41939","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Jorge closely accompanied his son Lionel throughout his career, beginning with his early years at Barcelona.","published_date":"","news_description":"Jorge closely accompanied his son Lionel throughout his career, beginning with his early years at Barcelona.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41939","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\/41939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41941,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41939\/revisions\/41941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=41939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}