By Ayobami Okerinde
Spanish club FC Barcelona has explained how Lionel Messi’s now-iconic photograph with Lamine Yamal as a baby came to be, revealing that the moment was the result of a UNICEF charity project organised by the club’s foundation in 2008.
The image, which resurfaced during Yamal’s breakthrough performances for Spain at Euro 2024 and has continued to circulate widely recently, shows a 20-year-old Messi cradling Yamal, who was only a few months old at the time.
In a statement on Thursday, Barcelona said the meeting happened “through sheer chance” during the first presidency of Joan Laporta.
According to the club, the FC Barcelona Foundation partnered with Sport newspaper to produce its annual charity calendar, a fundraising initiative launched in 2004 to support UNICEF and the foundation’s humanitarian projects.
