Before Lionel Messi belonged to Barcelona, to Paris, to Miami and to Argentina, he belonged to a family in Rosario that decided in 2000 to pack up and follow him to Catalonia. The man who made that call was his father Jorge, who died at 2am local time on Saturday at the Sanatorio Centro clinic in Rosario after a long illness, the Buenos Aires Times reported.

He was 68. His wife Celia and their other three children, Rodrigo, Matías and María Sol, had been at his side in recent months.

Jorge Messi had spent his working life as a supervisor in Rosario’s steel industry before he took charge of his youngest son’s football career. He funded the growth hormone treatment that Lionel needed as a child, pushed the family through the move to Barcelona when the boy was 13, and negotiated every contract from there.

From Grandoli to the Camp Nou

Barcelona picked up the medical bills that the Messi family in Argentina could no longer afford, and Jorge accepted the offer on his son’s behalf. The move away from Newell’s Old Boys, where Lionel had grown up, changed everything.

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He remained his son’s agent through three clubs and a World Cup title. Not everything was smooth. In 2016 both father and son were convicted of tax fraud over the handling of image rights between 2007 and 2009, receiving suspended prison sentences that were later converted to fines totalling around €432,000.

A No. 10 shirt under a No. 7

News of the death broke in Argentina on Saturday morning. Lionel returned to Rosario to be with his family and was not with Inter Miami later that day when they lost 2-1 to Monterrey in a Leagues Cup group match.

Rodrigo De Paul, Messi’s Argentina team-mate, opened the scoring in the 32nd minute and pulled up his shirt to reveal a No. 10 jersey underneath his own No. 7. He was booked for the tribute. Monterrey turned the game around after the break through Hugo Cuypers, before Diego Rossi struck a 90th-minute winner.

The one voice Lionel needed after every match

Newell’s Old Boys said Jorge’s “constant companionship and behind-the-scenes leadership were essential in backing every step of Lionel”. Barcelona thanked him for his commitment to the club.

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Lionel has often described his father as the one person whose verdict he wanted after every game.

“I always needed my dad’s approval, ever since I was a kid. After every match, I’d ask him what he thought.”

Jorge’s final tournament as a spectator was the 2026 World Cup, held across the United States, Canada and Mexico between June and July. His health was closely watched by the family during those weeks. Argentina reached the final in New York and lost 1-0 to Spain after extra time. Four years earlier, in Qatar, he had watched his son lift the trophy.

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