A young Lionel Messi dribbles a soccer ball or poses for a photograph with his grandmother. As an adult, he embraces his children, kisses his wife, or points two fingers to the sky in memory of his grandmother after scoring a goal with Argentina.
In this Feb. 20, 2018 photo, Paraguayan artist Lilian Cantero paints a pair of soccer cleats in San Lorenzo, Paraguay. Cantero has received requests for her work from all over the world after Lionel Messi posed in a photograph with the cleats that she sent him as a gift. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)
The hand-painted images on a pair of soccer boots by a young Paraguayan artist relive some of the most memorable moments in the personal life and career of the best player of his generation. Artist Lilian Cantero sent the boots to Messi as a gift to Barcelona, and he recently displayed them in a photo on a post that went viral on social media. Now, she is getting demands for her work from all over the world.
"It was such an incredibly humble gesture on his part," Cantero, 25, said at her atelier in the outskirts of Asuncion, surrounded by colorful designs posted on the walls. "For Messi to have one of my works was my dream since I began painting soccer boots."
Growing up, Cantero remembers flipping through the pages of an encyclopedia at home, mesmerized by the works of famous painters. In school, she once decorated white sandals with bright motifs. In college, she painted sandals again as part of an assigned project, where students launched their own small businesses. By word of mouth, friends who played soccer began asking her her to paint their boots. Eventually, she began designing for a local sports store and getting requests from Paraguayan professional players.
In this Feb. 20, 2018 photo, Paraguayan artist Lilian Cantero holds her designs at her studio in San Lorenzo, Paraguay. Artist Lilian Cantero sent the cleats to Messi as a gift to Barcelona, and he recently displayed them in a photo on a post that went viral on social media. Now, she is getting demands for her work from all over the world. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)
But it was Messi's remarkable career that she wanted to bring to life.
Through documentaries and interviews, she learned how from an early age, Messi would dazzle with a soccer ball at his feet in his native city of Rosario; how he was encouraged by his maternal grandmother, Celia, to overcome challenges and become a professional player; and how Barcelona took a gamble on a 13-year-old undersized kid and paid for his growth hormone treatment. The five-time FIFA world player of the year would go on to win it all with the club, leading to comparisons with Pele and Diego Maradona, the game's greatest players.
"I chose Messi because he's one of the greatest players in history, but also because of his own history - his childhood, which demanded so many sacrifices," Cantero said. "That's what I wanted to express."
In this Feb. 20, 2018 photo, Paraguayan artist Lilian Cantero paints a pair of soccer cleats, in San Lorenzo, Paraguay. Growing up, Cantero remembers flipping through the pages of an encyclopedia at home, mesmerized by the works of famous painters. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)
Cantero sent the boots all the way from her country in the heart of South America to Barcelona with a friend who dropped them off in October at the Camp Nou stadium. In January, she could hardly believe it when she saw the photo of a smiling Messi, holding the boots in his hands. She also got a message from Rodrigo Messi, one of the player's brothers, thanking her for the gift.
Messi's boots are decorated on one side with the horizontally striped sky-blue and white colors of the Argentine flag and its golden sun. A phrase from the national anthem and the names of Messi's wife and children are painted on a side next to photos of a young Messi with his grandmother, playing at Grandoli, his childhood club, and in the lower divisions of Argentina's Newell's Old Boys.
The boots are adorned on another side with the blue and garnet colors of the Barcelona club shirt and images of Messi. They include his celebration of his first goal at the club with Brazilian player Ronaldinho, and when he lifted his number 10 shirt at Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu stadium after scoring his 500th career goal for Barcelona.
In this Feb. 20, 2018 photo, Paraguayan artist Lilian Cantero smiles in her studio backdropped by her painting designs which she adds to soccer cleats to honor Argentine soccer player Lionel Messi, in San Lorenzo, Paraguay. “I chose Messi because he’s one of the greatest players in history, but also because of his own history - his childhood, which demanded so many sacrifices,” Cantero said. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)
Messi has faced criticism in Argentina because he has never brought the country a major title, in contrast to his repeated success at Barcelona. All eyes will be on "The Flea" at the World Cup in Russia this year in a tournament that could crown his career. Regardless of the outcome, though, he is already praised both at home and abroad for keeping his common touch.
Since Messi published the photo, Cantero's career has taken off with requests for her designs from professional players, including Peru's Paolo Guerrero and Panama's Gabriel Gavilan. She is also in talks with Argentine players and a member of the U.S. national team. Her goal is to reach out to as many players as possible, and eventually, to get a shot as an official designer for an international athletic company.
"Many people have told me that I'm a source of pride for my country," she said, smilingly. "But I still can't believe all of this."
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — An independent review of the neutrality of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees found that Israel never expressed concern about anyone on the staff lists it has received annually since 2011. The review was carried out after Israel alleged that a dozen employees of the agency known as UNRWA had participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
In a wide-ranging 48-page report released Monday, the independent panel said UNRWA has “robust” procedures to uphold the U.N. principle of neutrality, but it cited serious gaps in implementation, including staff publicly expressing political views, textbooks used in schools the agency runs with “problematic content” and staff unions disrupting operations. It makes 50 recommendations to improve UNRWA's neutrality.
From 2017 to 2022, the report said, the annual number of allegations of neutrality being breached at UNRWA ranged from seven to 55. But between January 2022 and February 2024, U.N. investigators received 151 allegations, most related to social media posts “made public by external sources,” it said.
In a key section on the neutrality of staff, the panel, which was led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, said UNRWA shares lists of staff with host countries for its 32,000 staff, including about 13,000 in Gaza. But it said Israeli officials never expressed concern and informed panel members it did not consider the list “a screening or vetting process” but rather a procedure to register diplomats.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry informed the panel that until March 2024 the staff lists did not include Palestinian identification numbers, the report said.
Apparently based on those numbers, “Israel made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations,” the panel said. “However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this" to the refugee agency.
Colonna stressed that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed the independent review panel to review UNRWA's neutrality — not to investigate Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA staffers participated in the Oct. 7 attacks. Guterres ordered the U.N. internal watchdog, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, known as OIOS, to conduct a separate investigation into those Israeli allegations.
“It is a separate mission. And it is not in our mandate,” Colonna said. She also said it is not surprising that Israel did not provide evidence of its allegations to the refugee agency “because it doesn't owe this evidence during the investigation to UNRWA but to the OIOS.”
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Monday the U,N. hopes to have an update from OIOS “in the coming days.” He said its investigators have been in contact with Israeli security services.
Israel’s allegations led to the suspension of contributions to UNRWA by the United States and more than a dozen other countries. That amounted to a pause in funding worth about $450 million, according to Monday’s report, but a number of countries have resumed contributions.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Monday called on donor countries to avoid sending money to the organization.
“The Colonna report ignores the severity of the problem, and offers cosmetic solutions that do not deal with the enormous scope of Hamas’ infiltration of UNRWA,” ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said. “This is not what a genuine and thorough review looks like. This is what an effort to avoid the problem and not address it head on looks like.”
Colonna urged the Israeli government not to discount the independent review. “Of course you will find it is insufficient, but please take it on board. Whatever we recommend, if implemented, will bring good," she said.
The report stresses the critical importance of UNRWA, calling it “irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and economic development” in the absence of a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and “pivotal in providing life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.”
Dujarric welcomed this commitment to UNRWA and said the report “lays out clear recommendations, which the secretary-general accepts.” The U.N. hopes to see the return of donors as well as new donors following the report’s release, he said.
Among the recommendations are steps to tackle politicization of UNRWA staff and its staff unions. The report recommends that staff lists with ID numbers be provided to host countries, which would then tell UNRWA the results of their screening and "any red flags.”
The report also calls for stronger oversight of UNRWA’s leadership and operations, “zero-tolerance" of antisemitism or discrimination in textbooks used in its schools, and greater international involvement in supporting the agency as it addresses neutrality issues.
UNRWA’s Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said safeguarding the agency's neutrality is critical to its work and it is developing a plan to implement the report's recommendations.
With Israel calling for the breakup of the agency, Lazzarini told the U.N. Security Council last week that dismantling UNRWA would deepen Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and speed up the onset of famine.
International experts have warned of imminent famine in northern Gaza and said half the territory’s 2.3 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation if the Israeli-Hamas war intensifies.
The review was conducted over nine weeks by Colonna and three Scandinavian research organizations: the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights. Colonna said the group spoke with more than 200 people, including UNRWA staff in Gaza, and had direct contacts with representatives of 47 countries and organizations.
A Palestinian reacts to seeing the young victim of an Israeli airstrike, at Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Monday, April 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
FILE - United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speak during a Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters, April 18, 2024. An independent review released Monday, April 22, of the neutrality of UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, has found that Israel never expressed concern about anyone on the staff lists it has received annually since 2011. The review was carried out after Israel alleged that a dozen employees of the agency had participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. Guterres ordered the U.N. internal watchdog to carry out a separate investigation into the allegations. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
FILE - French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna speaks during a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, Dec. 18, 2023. An independent review released Monday, April 22, 2023, of the neutrality of UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, has found that Israel never expressed concern about anyone on the staff lists it has received annually since 2011. The review was carried out after Israel alleged that a dozen employees of the agency had participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. The independent panel, led by Colonna, said UNRWA has "robust" procedures to uphold the U.N. principle of neutrality. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
FILE - Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, Sept. 12, 2023. An independent review released Monday, April 22, 2024, of the neutrality of UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, has found that Israel never expressed concern about anyone on the staff lists it has received annually since 2011. The review was carried out after Israel alleged that a dozen employees of the agency had participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)
