Fernando Romero Nuñez 
Climate change activist group Futuro Vegetal vandalized one of the houses of Argentine superstar Lionel Messi in Spain on Tuesday. The organization, self-described as a “civil disobedience and direct action movement”, spray painted the front of the house in the early morning hours.
“We acted,” said the group, claiming responsibility for the attack on Instagram. “We painted Messi’s illegal mansion in Ibiza.”
Members of the group released images in front of the house with a banner that said “Help the planet. Eat a rich man. Abolish the police.” Two activists are seen throwing red and black paint at the white facade of the property.
Futuro Vegetal is an activist group in the same vein as Just Stop Oil and Riposte Alimentaire. These groups have carried out similar actions trying to aim awareness of the climate crisis, like gluing themselves to the painting The Hay Wain by John Constable in London’s National Gallery, or throwing soup at Leonardo Da Vinci’s La Gioconda at the Louvre.
In January, Spanish newspaper El País reported that 22 Futuro Vegetal members were being accused of being part of a criminal structure that caused damages to assets worth more than half a million euros.
The group added that with the Messi protest they wanted to highlight the role “of the rich in the climate crisis” by attacking the mansion, claiming that the construction is an “illegal building” the player acquired for 11 million euros. They stated that at least two people have died as a result of the heat wave in the Baleares Islands.
They also argued that the current situation is “only possible as political power sustains a social-economic system that threatens the life of the population” and that “while the extreme right blames the crisis on migrants […] the problem is social inequality.”
Futuro Vegetal spokesperson Bilbo Bassaterra also denounced that last week almost 200 workers were evicted from an informal settlement in Ibiza without a housing solution to their problems. They called this a showing of “how the law does not work the same for everyone.”
Messi’s mansion is in the north of Ibiza, at the Port of Sant Miquel. The house, known as Sa Ferradura, is a villa sitting on a private island of 35.000 square meters, and was awarded as Europe’s Best Private Villa in 2021 by the Boutique Hotel Awards. The Argentine superstar bought it in 2022, reportedly from Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov.
