CELEBRITY
Bidding opens for Messi napkin that defined soccer great’s career
![](https://sportsvillagesquare.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/messi-napkin.jpg)
Bidding began on Wednesday for a napkin on which soccer club Barcelona penned a promise to sign a 13-year-old Lionel Messi – who went on to become one of the game’s greatest players – with early bids reaching almost $300,000.
The napkin was signed in December 2000 when Carles Rexach, then Barcelona’s sporting director, agreed with agent Horacio Gaggioli to recruit the Argentine teenager who went on to become the club’s all-time top scorer.
Bidding for the document, described by auction house Bonhams as “blue ink on a standard Spanish waxy napkin,” was at 220,000 pounds ($274,824.00) shortly after the sale opened, according to the auctioneer’s website.
The online sale closes on May 17 and has a guide price of between 300,000 and 500,000 pounds.
“It was never legally binding, but emotionally it represents the deep link or the beginning of the deep link, that Messi had with Barcelona,” said Bonhams Chief Marketing Officer Marc Sands.
Messi helped Barcelona win 35 titles, making a record 782 appearances and scoring 674 goals. Messi left Barcelona in 2021 and now plays for Inter Miami.
“If you love football, you’ll know all about Lionel Messi and you will know that he defined football for generations. If you want a slice of that action, this is the thing to get,” Sands said.
-Reuters
CELEBRITY
Lionel Messi set to hang boots
![Messi Sets Record Straight Over Hong Kong Absence -](https://sportsvillagesquare.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Messi-Sets-Record-Straight-Over-Hong-Kong-Absence.jpg)
Inter Miami will be the last club Argentina captain Lionel Messi plays for, the 36-year-old forward said on Wednesday, adding he feels “a little bit scared” at the thought of the day he decides to retire.
Messi, a World Cup winner with Argentina in 2022, has a contract with the Major League Soccer side until 2025 following his arrival last summer after a spell with French champions Paris St Germain.
“Inter Miami will be my last club. I love playing football. I enjoy everything even more because I am aware that there is less and less left,” Messi told ESPN.
“I’m not ready to leave football. I’ve done this all my life, I love playing football, I enjoy training, the day-to-day, the matches… And yes, there’s always a little bit of fear that it’s all over.”
The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Messi is preparing with his national team to defend their Copa America title, with the tournament kicking off on June 20 in the United States.
Argentina will take on Canada in the opening match before facing Group A rivals Chile on June 25 and Peru four days later.
-Reuters
CELEBRITY
Maradona’s children wants body exhumed
![](https://sportsvillagesquare.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/maradona.jpg)
Diego Maradona’s children filed a request with the Argentine Courts on Thursday to move the former football great’s body “to a much safer place” and for fans “to pay tribute” in a mausoleum.
Maradona’s remains lie in a private cemetery on the outskirts of Buenos Aires where he was carried in November 2020 in a massive funeral procession. Only family members are allowed to enter the cemetery.
The mausoleum, called “Memorial del Diez,” is located behind the Casa Rosada, the seat of the executive branch of the Argentine government, and will be open to the public, Veronica Ojeda, mother of Maradona’s youngest son, told local media.
“All the heirs request by common agreement to authorise the transfer to his next destination of eternal rest (…) in a much safer place than the current one,” said the note presented to the court signed by Dalma and Gianinna Maradona, and Ojeda on behalf of Diego Maradona Jr.
“And so that all the Argentine people and the citizens of the world can pay homage to our father who was the greatest Argentine idol.”
The relocation will take place around Oct. 30, the birth date of the 1986 World Cup winner with Argentina, one of the family’s lawyers told reporters.
Maradona died at age 60 in November 2020 from a heart attack. Fans of Napoli and of the Argentine national team worshipped him as the “god of football.”
-Reuters
CELEBRITY
Revealed! Brazilian Magazine Funded Dani Alves’ €1m Bail –
![From Trouble To Trouble; Dani Alves To Face Justice Again In A New Case In Brazil -](https://sportsvillagesquare.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/From-Trouble-To-Trouble-Dani-Alves-To-Face-Justice-Again.jpg)
A Brazilian magazine has reportedly been identified as having paid Dani Alves’ €1m (£850,000) bail after the former Barcelona star was released from prison.
Alves was released from prison on Monday after depositing the funds having spent 13 months in jail.
The 40-year-old had been held at Brians 2 Prison near Barcelona since January 2023 after being accused of raping a young woman in a nightclub bathroom in the Spanish city in the early hours of December 31, 2022.
He was found guilty of rape last month and was handed a four-and-a-half year prison sentence, which he subsequently appealed. Alves pleaded to be released on bail, and his bail bond was set at €1m.
It appeared that he would struggle to raise this figure due to the Brazilian reportedly having two empty bank accounts and another in the red, but he managed to pay the fee on Monday and was released from prison.
The source of the payment has been the subject of speculation, with Memphis Depay‘s agent denying reports the Atletico Madrid forward had paid Alves’ bail.
Brazilian team-mate Neymar’s dad had been expected to help Alves pay the money to secure his freedom, but he issued a statement denying he would hand over any cash after coming under political pressure in his homeland.
Spanish journalist Marisa Martín Blazquez, speaking on Fiesta, reported that a Brazilian magazine paid Alves bail in exchange for an interview.
Blazquez said the Alves would have been requested to ask his model wife Joana Sanz to feature as part of the interview.
‘The magazine, known in Brazil, does great reports on important people in Brazil, but also internationally,’ Blazquez said.
‘There are a series of requirements that must be met.
‘An interview would be being conducted as a video report on Alves’ story and, in addition, Alves would have asked Joana Sanz to participate in this report.
‘[The payment] would have been an advance as payment for that documentary-type interview that is being done.’
Sanz revealed last year she had demanded a divorce after Alves admitted for the first time to having sex with the woman he was found guilty of raping, but claimed as he still does that the relations were consensual.
The 31-year-old brunette later said the divorce had been put on hold and she gave evidence on Alves’ behalf at his trial from February 5 to 7.
Alves is on provisional release and will usually attend court hearings on Friday.
He is understood to have complied with the other orders of the three judges who said he could leave jail despite his recent rape conviction by handing in his Spanish and Brazilian passports.
Keen to make the most of his life outside prison walls, he was reported to have celebrated one of his first nights of freedom with a lavish party.
Alves was convicted of raping a 23-year-old woman in the toilet of an upscale Barcelona nightclub, Sutton, over a year and a half ago.
The jail sentence he received, considered lenient by some critics, was far less than the nine years public prosecutors demanded and the 12 years Alves’ female accuser wanted if he was convicted.
Previous attempts from the footballer to be allowed bail had been rejected by the courts largely because he was viewed as a potential fight risk, and the player’s home nation, Brazil, does not extradite citizens sentenced abroad.
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