Owner, businessman & player: Messi has big plans as a golden era ends

Lionel Messi is about to play his last match for Argentina.

On what will be his 208th appearance, the country's most-capped player and record goalscorer will bid an emotional farewell in a friendly against Benin at the Monumental in Buenos Aires on Tuesday (Wednesday 00:00 BST).

Arguably Argentina's greatest ever player - only Diego Maradona comes close - announced his retirement from the national team on 31 August, six weeks after the World Cup final defeat by Spain, saying he had nothing more to give.

Coach Lionel Scaloni insists that if Messi ever wants to carry on, he can, and there is no embarrassment in changing one's mind. But that chapter seems closed.

His club career though goes on. The contract with Inter Miami runs to the end of the 2028 season, but it is reviewed year by year, and nobody close to him expects him to walk away a day before he has to.

In fact, it is quite likely he will renew it if he feels, mentally and physically, up for it.

Ask the people around him what comes after that and they smile, because Messi has never really planned beyond his next game.

Even so, the shape of what lies ahead is already in front of us. He will stay inside football, because he would struggle to live without it, but his other business interests stretch far outside the game.

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An owner who wants to be involved in everything

Messi used to like the idea of being a sporting director or an adviser to the president, close to the decisions without all the travelling and the phone calls.

And asked recently whether he would rather be a coach or an owner, Messi chose owner.

A coach lives and dies by every Saturday and has to worry about far too many things for Messi's liking.

An owner shapes the direction of a club from a little further back. Having said that, he would be an owner who does not stop at approving the appointment of a manager and stepping away. He would want to be involved in everything.

The groundwork is being laid in Spain. UE Cornella, on the edge of Barcelona and in the fifth tier, is the nursery where young players grow. He bought it in April.

CD Eldense, in the second division, announced Messi as its new owner on 1 October, subject to authorisation from the Spanish sports council, the CSD.

Eldense will be the club that leads his football operation, but the target this season is not to get relegated, so former Villarreal boss Javi Calleja got the job with the arrival of the new owner.

The plan is to run both through people he trusts, who will act as a link between Messi and the clubs until the day he can give them his full attention.

For now he follows every Eldense match closely on his computer. After Eldense beat Real Oviedo by four goals to one, his first message as owner was an Instagram post that read "Aupa Deportivo".

The pull of his name has been felt as well. Around a dozen sponsors came forward within a couple of days, some of them brands that had been talking to the previous owners without ever closing a deal, and some that already have a relationship with him.

In Uruguay he and Luis Suarez founded Deportivo LSM in May 2025, and they won promotion to the country's third tier in its first season.

A network of more clubs was discussed at the start. But the sums needed to lift them up the divisions have cooled that idea quickly, and it is not on the table today. Messi's focus is to see whether Eldense can establish itself in La Liga.

There is a link to Miami as well. As part of his contract with Inter Miami, he will have some shares in the club when he retires. A franchise of his own is not part of the plan.

Could he go home to Newell's Old Boys, the club where he played as a child in Rosario? The idea has never been formally discussed.

It may have crossed his mind while drinking mate with Suarez, in the way a return to Barcelona or a spell at Napoli, the club of Maradona, might have.

Nobody close to the player expects it though. Everything is built around Europe and Miami, and the perfect home is waiting for the family in Castelldefels, close to the sea and Barcelona.

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A growing business empire and love for youth football

Newell's will still be close, because the club is one of the sixteen academies at this year's Messi Cup.

If owning clubs is one love, youth football is the other, and his regular presence at his son's games and the Messi Cup are the proof.