No, Lionel Messi did not post a lion picture on his social networks in support of Javier Mire

If you only have a few seconds, read these lines:

Circle within X a hypothetical story You can see the lion in the photo posted by Lionel Messi on Instagram. The post, which allegedly involved a story about an Inter Miami football player, went viral on October 22, the day the presidential election was held. The tweet was accompanied by the following text: “Lio Messi votes for Leon Mire.” However, this is wrong.

The tweet was viewed more than 2.7 million times, received more than 41,000 “likes” and was shared more than 2,000 times, according to the social network itself.

According to a search of Chequeado on Google, there was no mention in the media of the player’s alleged remarks. Messi also made no mention of Javier Millay.

Furthermore, the footballer’s communications director Marcelo Méndez told the outlet that “Leo never published that content” and that “this story does not exist”.

Finally, the hypothetical capture at the bottom shows the possibility of sending a message. However, the story on Messi’s official account does not allow you to write a message to him directly, at least not to anyone who is not one of the users he follows.

Other Milei-related error messages

Previously, the outlet confirmed different misinformation related to Messi’s support for Javier Milai’s demonstrations.

In June 2022, a statement purportedly attributed to the player circulated, stating: “Kun introduced me to liberalism. I will be voting for Millais next year.” This was false and has been denied this note.

In 2023, another piece of misinformation circulated, and according to different audios, Messi said “you must vote for Millais.” However, These audios are manipulated.

Finally, a photo of the player circulated, showing him posing with the presidential candidate’s book from the Free Press. This image has been modified

Because he does have a guestbook in his hand.

This check is Facebook’s third-party fact-checking program In Argentina. In the case of photos and videos, we use doctored images or images taken out of context, and we always analyze the image together with the text it presents.