It is official: Messi’s Argentina to play friendly international in Kerala

They will. They will not. They will. They will not.

Now, they indeed will. Lionel Messi’s Argentina will play a friendly football international in Kerala, after all.

After several months of uncertainty, during which Kerala’s Sports Minister had to announce that Argentina would play, and then that they would not, the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) itself stated on Saturday (August 23, 2025) that their national team would be playing in Kerala in November. It will be played at the Greenfield Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram.

The match is being organised by Reporter Broadcasting Company. “Though we received the email a couple of days ago from the AFA that Argentina would play in Kerala in November, we didn’t make an announcement and were waiting for them to say it first,” Anto Augustine, Reporter’s managing director, told The Hindu over the phone from Kochi on Saturday (August 23, 2025). “There had been so much negativity in the media about the match of late, so we felt it would be better if the AFA made it official first.”

He said a decision would be made soon about Argentina’s rival for the match. “We are looking at teams like Australia, Saudi Arabia and Qatar,” he said. “We are also trying to get Brazil. We hope to finalise the team within a week.”

Apart from the match, the Argentine team will also engage in a fan meeting, which could be at Kozhikode. “In our agreement, the AFA said they would have a fan meeting of 45 minutes,” said Anto. “We haven’t finalised the venue for that, but we feel Kozhikode or Malappuram would be ideal, given the love of football in the Malabar region.”

He said the match could cost something like ₹400 crore. “Since two national teams are playing, we feel finance would not be an issue,” he said. “We have already begun work on getting enough sponsors.”

He pointed out that his company had come into the picture some seven months ago, after the initial sponsor backed out. “We were always confident that the match would go ahead,” he said. “We had signed the agreement with the AFA for the match to be played in October or November. But in June, they told us they would instead be interested to play next year. We were not ready for that. We wanted Argentina to come to Kerala this year. I think that is the reason why the whole thing became such a big controversy.”

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