{"id":149565,"date":"2024-02-09T13:24:33","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T13:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/02\/09\/messi-faces-hong-kong-government\/"},"modified":"2024-02-09T13:24:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T13:24:33","slug":"messi-faces-hong-kong-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/02\/09\/messi-faces-hong-kong-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Messi Faces Hong Kong Government"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong> Lionel Messi <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Hong Kong government demanded answers from Inter Miami CF and Lionel Messi on Wednesday after the Argentine played in a friendly in Japan just three days after missing a similar exhibition match in its country.<\/p>\n<p>Hong Kong\u2019s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau said in a statement that, like the fans, it was very disappointed that Messi could not play in Hong Kong due to injury.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever three days later, Messi was able to play actively and freely in Japan,\u201d the statement read. \u201cThe government hopes the organisers and teams can provide reasonable explanations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Many in the financial hub were dismayed on Sunday when the 36-year-old did not come onto the field during a much hyped Inter Miami match to a sell-out crowd with fans demanding answers and a refund.<\/p>\n<p>Miami head coach Gerardo \u201cTata\u201d Martino said Messi was deemed unfit to play in Sunday\u2019s match in the Hong Kong friendly after saying before the game that it was likely he would play. The World Cup winner came on as a 60th minute substitute on Wednesday in Miami\u2019s shootout loss to Japanese side Vissel Kobe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnyone who knows me knows that I always want to play \u2026 especially in these games where we travel so far and people are excited to see our games. Hopefully we can come back and play a game in Hong Kong,\u201d Messi said on Tuesday before the game in Japan.<\/p>\n<p>The match in Hong Kong drew 40,000 fans, with spectators paying up to nearly HK$5,000 ($640) per ticket. In Tokyo, entire blocks of seating at the Japan National Stadium remained unoccupied, with just 28,614 tickets sold.<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s state-controlled Global Times said Messi\u2019s absence posed many questions on the differential treatment for Hong Kong.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe match in Hong Kong became the only one in Messi\u2019s six pre-season friendly matches on this trip where he was absent,\u201d the Global Times said in a statement. \u201cThe situation \u2026 has magnified these doubts and suspicions on the integrity of Inter Miami and Messi himself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some mainland fans travelled 12 hours from Xinjiang to Hong Kong to see Messi, the Global Times wrote, with the disappointment of the government and fans \u201centirely understandable. The impact of this incident has far exceeded the realm of sports.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Regina Ip, a senior Hong Kong government advisor wrote on X that: \u201cHong Kong people hate Messi, Inter Miami and the black hand behind them, for the deliberate and calculate snub to Hong Kong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- AI CONTENT END 2 -->\n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lionel Messi \u00a0 The Hong Kong government demanded answers from Inter Miami CF and Lionel Messi on Wednesday after the Argentine played in a friendly in Japan just three days after missing a similar exhibition match in its country. Hong Kong\u2019s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau said in a statement that, like the fans, it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":149566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Messi Faces Hong Kong Government - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/02\/09\/messi-faces-hong-kong-government\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Messi Faces Hong Kong Government - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lionel Messi \u00a0 The Hong Kong government demanded answers from Inter Miami CF and Lionel Messi on Wednesday after the Argentine played in a friendly in Japan just three days after missing a similar exhibition match in its country. 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