Climate activists vandalise Messi's Ibiza home

Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Van Gogh... and Leo Messi. Ibiza drew them all in. The football star has become the new target of climate activists, and in particular his mansion on the island of Ibiza. Two climate activists from the protest group Futuro Vegetal broke into the Argentinian's estate on Tuesday morning to vandalise the property's façade with black and red paint.

"It is an illegal construction that the footballer acquired for the exorbitant figure of 11 million euros," said the group. The former FC Barcelona player bought the house in 2022, a date on which the building did not have either the licence of first occupancy nor the habitation certificate. "The law does not work the same for everyone," stated Futuro Vegetal in a post on its social media channels.

The house was inspected by the Balearic authorities for "earthworks, terracing, changes in the topography of the land, excavations for installations" as requested by the previous owner to enable part of a garage to become living space.

The group has defined this latest action as one more of its protests "of non-violent civil disobedience" against the "continuist" (keeping to the status quo) measures of Pedro Sánchez's government that "are just going to aggravate the climate crisis". Futuro Vegetal draws attention to Oxfam's 2023 report, which states that "the richest 1% of the world's population generated the same amount of carbon emissions in 2019 as the poorest two thirds of humanity, despite the fact that it is precisely the most vulnerable communities who are suffering the worst consequences of the [climate] crisis".

Among the images shared on different social platforms, the activists display banners bearing anti-police and anti-rich phrases. They also show different rooms in Leo Messi's villa, where he spends his time when he goes to Ibiza.

However, this is not Futuro Vegetal's first outing on the Balearic island of Ibiza (in collaboration with the Ibiza branch of Extinction Rebellion). In July of last year they sprayed black paint over the cherries at the Pacha nightclub and stormed the luxury beach club Blue Marlin in Cala Jondal with protest banners bearing the slogan: 'Your luxury our climate crisis'.

In addition, paint was also thrown over a private jet, a Lamborghini and on the yacht Kaos, owned by Nancy Walton Laurie, heiress of the Walmart group.