Afghan boy famous for plastic bag jersey meets Lionel Messi
The six-year-old walked out on to the pitch with the Barcelona striker in Qatar where the team was playing a friendly match against Al Ahli.
Barcelona striker Lionel Messi on Tuesday met the Afghan child who become an internet sensation after his photo in a home-made jersey of the Argentina football team made out of a plastic bag surfaced in January. Messi met Murtaza Ahmadi, 6, in Doha, where the team played a friendly match against Al Ahli, reported BBC. He walked out on to the pitch with Messi on Tuesday night.
The 2022 World Cup organising committee shared the footage from the meeting on social media. “The image the world wanted to see,” the committee wrote. “The six-year-old boy who dreamed of meeting his hero, #Messi, finally comes true.” United Nations Human Rights Council arranged the meeting, reported The Guardian.
Messi had sent him a signed shirt after photos of the child in his plastic jersey went viral. Ahmadi is from the Jaghori District in the eastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan. He now lives in Pakistan after fleeing Afghanistan in May upon receiving threats after he got famous. “I sold all my belongings and brought my family out of Afghanistan to save my son’s life as well as the lives of the rest of the family,” his father had said.