Sitting on a boat, staring at the horizon, Lionel Messi published a photo of himself on Monday, where he is delighted to "discover the Red Sea".
This post on Instagram is also accompanied by the hashtag #VisitSaudi and the clarification that it is subject to remuneration from the Saudi tourist office.
The 34-year-old Argentinian, under contract with the Qatar-owned club PSG, Saudi Arabia's political rivals in recent years, has in fact been named a Saudi tourism ambassador.
The Saudi tourist office account published another photo of the Argentinian, accompanied for the occasion by Leandro Paredes, captioned: “From the Red Sea to historic Jeddah, the adventure of a lifetime awaits you ".
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A post shared by Visit Saudi (@visitsaudi)
The site sportbuzzbusiness.fr also reports remarks by Ahmed Al-Khatib, the Minister of Tourism, to the Saudi daily Al Riyad: “Today, I welcome Lionel Messi and his friends to Saudi Arabia for a special holiday.
This is not his first visit to the Kingdom, nor will it be his last, and I am happy to announce Messi as Saudi Tourism Ambassador
. ”
In December, Messi had already traveled to the Gulf in Doha (Qatar) and also in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) where he was ambassador of the universal exhibition.
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A post shared by Leo Messi (@leomessi)
The discovery of Messi's link with Saudi Arabia did not surprise the Parisian leaders informed since the start of the season of this project.
It is true that if relations between Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been strained in recent years, PSG, for its part, has always sought to bring about a rapprochement with its neighbor.
An academy was launched in 2017. And the club's last tour in Qatar, initially scheduled for mid-January, included a detour to Riyadh where a friendly match was scheduled.
In any case, Messi's Instagram post was not to everyone's taste even though more than 5M of his subscribers liked it.
Thus Amnesty International Norway published an unequivocal comment: “Travelling in Saudi Arabia is one thing, but being paid to glorify the country is another”.
Before listing certain facts to recall the violations of human rights in Saudi Arabia, in particular on the rights of women "almost non-existent" and on the death penalty "destiny" of homosexuals.
“Do you really want to support this, Messi?
concludes Amnesty International.
