Lionel Messi will pull on the sky blue and white for the 208th and final time on Tuesday night, when Argentina face Benin in a friendly at River Plate’s Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires. The 39-year-old leaves the national team as its most-capped player and record scorer, with 125 goals and 68 assists in 207 appearances, a 2022 World Cup winner’s medal and Copa America titles from 2021 and 2024 on the shelf behind him.
He also leaves it with a to-do list. In the five weeks since his retirement from international football, Messi has been confirmed as owner of Spanish second-division club CD Eldense, watched the third-tier club he founded with Luis Suarez win promotion in Uruguay, and prepared to host the second edition of his own youth tournament in Florida. The player is winding down. The owner and the businessman are only getting started.
A farewell six weeks in the making
Messi announced his international retirement on 31 August, six weeks after Argentina’s 1-0 extra-time defeat by Spain in the World Cup final in New York on 19 July. Ferran Torres settled that match in the 106th minute, against ten men, after Enzo Fernandez was dismissed for a second booking. Messi, who had turned 39 three weeks earlier, said simply that he had “nothing left to give” to the national team.
The AFA has turned Tuesday into a state occasion. President Claudio Tapia has invited the entire 2022 World Cup-winning squad back to Buenos Aires for what he has called an “unforgettable” night, and Argentina will wear a special shirt — the familiar stripes with gold detailing on the collar and cuffs — with Messi’s name and the number 10 on it for the last time. The Monumental holds 85,000. Benin, ranked outside the world’s top 80, are essentially guests at a coronation.
What follows is the harder question, and it is one that has quietly defined Messi’s past 18 months: what does a footballer who has won everything do with the next 40 years?
Building a football portfolio, from the fifth tier up
His answer has been to buy clubs rather than coach them. Asked about life after playing, Messi has been unambiguous that he would “prefer to be an owner” — to “have my own club, start from the bottom, and make it grow”, and to “give the kids the opportunity to develop and achieve something important.”
The acquisitions follow that logic with unusual discipline:
- UE Cornella — bought in April 2026. A fifth-tier club on the edge of Barcelona, metres from where Messi grew up in the Spanish game, now functioning as a development nursery.
- Deportivo LSM — co-founded with Suarez in May 2025 in Uruguay. Promoted to the third tier in its first season.
- CD Eldense — announced on 1 October 2026, pending authorisation from Spain’s sports council, the CSD. The Alicante club has hired former Villarreal manager Javi Calleja and beat Real Oviedo 4-1 soon after; Messi posted “Aupa Deportivo” on Instagram. Around a dozen sponsors are understood to have approached the club within days of the news.
Then there is Inter Miami, where the commercial and the sporting collide. Messi’s contract runs to the end of the 2028 season with a year-by-year review clause, and he is due to receive shares in the club on retirement — the ownership option that was baked into his move to Major League Soccer from the beginning. The Messi Cup, his under-16 academy tournament, launched with eight teams in 2025 and doubles to 16 this month at Inter Miami’s training facilities. He attends every match.
The $1.1bn ledger
Forbes valued Messi’s net worth at approximately $1.1bn in June 2026, with annual earnings of around $140m split between football and business. The non-football column is now genuinely diversified: six MiM boutique hotels from Ibiza to Andorra, run under the Melia Collection since 1 November 2025; a lifetime Adidas deal signed in 2017; a Stanley mate collection; the El Club de la Milanesa restaurant chain, with five Catalan branches planned; the Carrasco M development of 24 homes in his native Rosario; plus television production, marketing and media companies.
Speaking at the America Business Forum in Miami last November, he framed it modestly. “Business is something that interests me,” he said. “I would like to keep learning because I know nothing and I am just starting out.”
What it means going forward
The David Beckham comparison is unavoidable, and Beckham is literally Messi’s landlord in Fort Lauderdale. But the shape is different. Beckham’s post-playing influence was built on a single expansion franchise and an MLS contract clause. Messi is assembling a multi-country pyramid — nursery club, second-division club, overseas start-up, MLS equity, youth tournament — that looks less like a retirement hobby than a talent pipeline with a brand attached.
The risk is familiar to anyone who has watched celebrity ownership in European football: sponsors arrive for the name and leave when results sour, and Eldense’s licence still requires the CSD’s blessing. The opportunity is that Messi, unlike almost any previous owner, can open doors in Barcelona, Buenos Aires and Miami simultaneously.
Tuesday closes the golden era of Argentine football — the Messi era, the one that delivered a World Cup after 36 years of waiting. He has at least two more seasons in Florida. After that, the name on the team sheet changes to the name on the letterhead.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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