Messi hints retirement after father’s death: What happens next?

Lionel Messi has laid bare the emotional wreckage left by his father’s death, admitting he no longer knows whether he can continue playing football. The eight-time Ballon d’Or winner’s Instagram tribute to Jorge Messi, who died aged 68 after a long illness, carried a raw admission: “I don’t know how to carry on.” With his father absent for the first major tournament of his son’s career—the 2026 World Cup final—Messi’s grief now threatens to redraw the map of his playing future.

Club football hangs in the balance

Messi’s club career at Inter Miami was meant to run until 2028, but his contract extension signed last autumn now faces an uncertain fate. He missed Miami’s Leagues Cup defeat to Monterrey while returning to Argentina for Jorge’s funeral, a private ceremony in Perez, outside Rosario. The club observed the moment with black armbands and a tribute from Rodrigo De Paul, yet the overriding question is whether Messi will still want to pull on a shirt without his father beside him. Jorge Messi’s death: How Lionel’s legacy shaped football’s most famous family traces how the patriarch steered his son from Rosario’s streets to global glory, a bond that now complicates any decision to keep playing.

Inter Miami’s sporting director, Marcello Balboa, has previously spoken of Messi’s value beyond the pitch, but the club’s planning will now pivot on the player’s state of mind. If Messi steps away, Miami would need to trigger contractual clauses or seek a mutual release, opening a rare MLS window for a marquee name. The league’s summer transfer window has closed, so any exit would likely wait until January 2027 at the earliest.

Argentina’s Copa América plans face disruption

Messi’s international retirement was already expected after the 2026 World Cup final defeat to Spain, yet his father’s absence from that match—Jorge was hospitalised days before kick-off—adds a personal dimension to the exit. In a post-final press conference, manager Lionel Scaloni hinted at the end of the road for his captain, a statement that now carries extra weight. World Cup final LIVE: Lionel Messi in tears as Spain crowned champions vs Argentina captured the moment Messi wept on the pitch, a scene his father would never see.

Argentina’s next major target is the 2024 Copa América, where Scaloni’s side will need to regroup without their talisman or with a diminished version of him. If Messi does retire, La Albiceleste would lose their record appearance-maker and top scorer in one stroke, forcing an immediate rebuild in attack. The federation’s youth development projects—already accelerated under Scaloni—would become even more critical.

Family, legacy and the next move

Jorge Messi was more than a father; he was agent, chauffeur to training sessions in Rosario, and the steady hand behind every contract from Messi’s first Barcelona deal to the MLS move. “You were a father, a friend, and an agent,” Lionel wrote, “always the person I needed at every moment.” The depth of that relationship explains why Messi’s grief is so visceral. He had hoped Jorge would witness the World Cup final, yet his father’s health collapsed just days before the tournament began.

Now, Messi faces a binary choice: continue for club and country in a diminished capacity, or walk away while his legacy remains untarnished. The instinct to keep playing is strong—football has been his life since childhood—but the emotional cost may prove too high. If he retires, the sport loses its most decorated active player; if he persists, the risk is that every match becomes a tribute rather than a pursuit of trophies.

The coming weeks will decide whether Messi’s next chapter is written in jerseys or in memory. One thing is certain: without Jorge, the compass that guided him through every decision has vanished.