Boots offer by ‘Zionist’ Messi sparks uproar in Egypt

A offer by Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi to donate his boots for auction for charity provokes outrage in Egypt, where a lawmaker and soccer official decry the gesture and accuse the sporting legend of being Jewish and a Zionist.

After Messi makes the offer during an interview with private satellite channel MBC Misr, Egyptian MP Said Hasasein attacks Messi on his own TV show, calling the move “an insult to Egyptian people.”

Egyptian Football Federation spokesman Azmi Mogahed also phones in to the show to express his outrage. “Even in our religion…” he begins to say, when Hasasein interrupts: “His religion is Jewish!”

Mogahed agrees: “I know he’s Jewish, he donates to Israel and visited the Wailing Wall and whatever … we don’t need his shoe and Egypt’s poor don’t need help from someone with Jewish or Zionist citizenship.”

But former Egyptian soccer star Mido defends the Catholic Barcelona forward, writing on Twitter that, “The most precious thing a writer has is his pen, and the most precious thing a football player has is his boots.”

— AFP