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AFP reported on the 10th that both friendly matches of Argentina's national soccer team scheduled to be held in China were canceled amid Lionel Messi's (37, Inter Miami) "Hong Kong No Show."
According to reports, the Beijing Football Association said in a press release that "Beijing has no plans to host the match in which Messi will play at the moment." Earlier on the previous day, Hangzhou City announced that it would cancel a friendly match between Argentina and Nigeria, which was scheduled to be held next month. "For reasons that everyone knows well, we have learned from the supervisory authorities that the conditions for continuing the friendly match are immature," the Hangzhou City Sports Bureau said on its official social networking service account the previous evening. "Now we have decided to cancel the match." The reason why everyone knows well mentioned by the Hangzhou City Sports Bureau seems to have pointed to the impact of Messi's recent no-show in Hong Kong.
Argentina's national soccer team has scheduled a friendly tour of China from April 18 to 26. During that period, Argentina was scheduled to play against Nigeria in Hangzhou and Ivory Coast in Beijing. However, neither match will likely go as planned.
The Associated Press pointed out that Messi`s no-show in Hong Kong was further affected. "Some nationalist politicians and media interpret Messi`s no-show in Hong Kong and subsequent appearances in Japan as ignoring China," AFP said. "The cancellation of friendly matches in China is a headache for the Argentine Football Association, which considers China a strategic market."
Hong Kong fans were outraged that Messi did not play in a friendly match between his team Inter Miami and the Hong Kong professional football All-Star team held in Hong Kong on April 4 due to injury. At a time when tickets for the match have reached hundreds of thousands of won (hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars), some 40,000 fans who came to see Messi not only in Hong Kong but also in mainland China and neighboring Southeast Asia demanded a refund.
In particular, he played for 30 minutes in a friendly match held in Japan on the 7th, just three days later, further angering Hong Kong fans. When more than 1,300 complaints were filed with the Hong Kong Consumer Commission demanding a refund and a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council threatened to file a lawsuit with Tatler Asia, the host of the friendly match, Tatler finally announced that he would refund 50% of the ticket price the day before. 메이저 토토사이트