​Messi Reportedly Paid £2.4m to Appear in Gabon

This story originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

Lionel Messi has stoked significant controversy by allegedly taking a huge fee to lay the ceremonial stone at a new stadium in Gabon.

The country is set to stage the African Cup of Nations in 2017, after original hosts Libya lost the rights due to the ongoing war in the country, and President Ali Bongo invited the Argentine to appear at the ceremony in the city of Port-Gentil.

According to France Football, Messi was paid €3.5m (£2.4m) for his stone-laying efforts, though Gabonese officials have since rebuffed this claim.

"The Republic of Gabon denies having paid, or even promised to pay, such a sum of money to the Argentinian international footballer Lionel Messi," they said in a statement.

In fact, according to the President, Messi was there as a personal favour.

"When I was in Barcelona a few years ago, I met Messi who had told me that he would come to visit me in Libreville," said Bongo. "It's a promise he made me. He is a man of honour who just kept his word."

Much of the attention on Messi's visit has focussed on his choice of clothing: the four-time Ballon d'Dor winner arrived unshaven, wearing torn denim shorts and a t-shirt, and was greeted by a group of men in suits. Gabon's opposition party, the UPG, said in a statement: "The messiah of football arrived in Gabon like he were going to a zoo: dirty, unshaven and his hands in his pockets, looking for peanuts to throw to them!"

However, simply visiting Gabon is a matter of controversy, particularly on the invitation of President Bongo, who has been accused of electoral fraud and human rights abuses in the country. He has ruled Gabon since 2009 having succeeded his late father, Omar, who was president from 1967 until his death in '09.

According to Amnesty International: "Ali Bongo won a hotly disputed election [in 2009] marred by violence against opposition party members and widespread allegations of electoral fraud.

"Gabon's government is a centralized, autocratic presidential bureaucracy where power is distributed largely through patronage.

"Citizens have only limited ability to criticize or change their government. A number of opposition members were arrested arbitrarily without warrants after protesting the conduct and result of the election.

"Gabonese human rights activists and opposition party members claim the Gabonese military killed several dozen people in the city of Port-Gentil, an opposition stronghold, following the announcement of the election results on 2 September 2009.

"Torture and repeated severe beatings are routinely used on detainees, usually in order to obtain confessions. Arbitrary arrests without warrants are common."

While Messi was in Gabon, his Barcelona teammates were on tour in the U.S. The Argentine was allowed to sit out the trip having played for his country during this summer's Copa America.

Messi,est en route pour le Gabon. @patrick @Nabil_djellit @OluwadaLotfi @Mansour_Loum @OLFan_Page @KohlhuberN pic.twitter.com/60G2OvMheH
— terence ken (@edgard_ken) July 17, 2015