Kerala’s highly anticipated dream of hosting Lionel Messi and the World Cup-winning Argentina team this November isn’t happening. Despite repeated assurances from the state’s Sports Minister V. Abdurahiman that the match was on, the Argentine Football Association (AFA) has officially ruled out any visit to Kerala next month.
According to a report by onmanorama.com, the AFA confirmed that Argentina’s national team, led by coach Lionel Scaloni, will be in Spain for training in November before heading to Angola for a single friendly match.
“The Argentine national team, led by Lionel Scaloni, will travel to Spain in November for training and then move to Luanda for their only friendly against Angola on Friday the 14th,” the AFA said in a statement on Saturday. After that match, the team will return to South America to continue training until November 18, when the FIFA World Cup concludes.
So no Kerala. No Kochi. No Messi.
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What Went Wrong?
One of the event’s sponsors, Anto Augustine, posted on Facebook that the proposed match has been postponed—not canceled, but postponed. “Due to a delay in getting FIFA’s approval, a decision to postpone the match scheduled for November was taken in a meeting with an AFA official. The match will be held in the next window. The announcement will be made soon,” he wrote in Malayalam.
That’s the official line: FIFA approval didn’t come through in time, so they’re pushing it to the next available international window. Whether that actually happens remains to be seen. These things have a way of falling through.
Australia Had Other Plans Too
Adding to the mess, Australia—whom the Kerala government had named as Argentina’s opponents for the match—also confirmed they’re doing something completely different in November.
“Football Australia is pleased to confirm that the Socceroos will return to the USA during the November FIFA Men’s International Window to take on Venezuela and Colombia,” Football Australia said.
Australia is playing Venezuela in Texas on November 14 and Colombia in New York on November 18. So even if Argentina had agreed to come to Kerala, their supposed opponent was never going to be there anyway.
Big Plans, No Match
The Kerala government and its private partner had gone all out promoting this. They announced that Messi and Argentina would play in Kochi on November 17, attend fan events, and even participate in an open-bus parade through the city. Fans were excited. The hype was real.
Now all of that is off the table, at least for November. The question is whether it’ll actually happen in a future window or if this was just overly optimistic planning that didn’t account for the realities of scheduling international friendlies.
Getting Messi and a full-strength Argentina squad to play a friendly in India isn’t easy. There are FIFA windows to navigate, approvals to secure, and logistical hurdles that go beyond just announcing a date and hoping it works out. It’s not clear whether the Kerala organizers fully understood how complicated this process would be before making public commitments.
What Happens Next?
The sponsor says the match will happen in the next window, but there’s no timeline and no confirmation from the AFA beyond the statement ruling out November. For now, Kerala fans who were hoping to see Messi in person will have to keep waiting—and hoping that next time, the approvals come through and the schedules actually align.
It’s a disappointing turn of events for a state that was genuinely excited about hosting one of the biggest names in football. Whether this gets rescheduled or quietly fades away is anyone’s guess at this point.