How a Messi match that never was became a Kerala controversy
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is the king, goes the age-old proverb. This is what happened to the football fans of Kerala, a state obsessed with the game. Last year, the people in the state were in for a surprise as some TV channels and newspapers carried a report that Lionel Messi and his Argentine team would play a game of soccer in Kerala. Argentina is the reigning World Cup champions, and Messi is their Man with the Mida’s Touch.
Messi has considerable followers in the state as the last World Cup featured larger-than-life-size cutouts of the golden star from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram. It is reported that the Argentine star himself was in for a pleasant surprise as someone showed him the photograph of such hoardings.
Abdur Rehman, Kerala’s minister for sports and a hardcore Islamist, was the one who told the media that Argentina, led by Messi, would play in Kerala, and their opponents would be Australia. Thus started the countdown for the day when Messi lands in the state with the Argentine soccer team. Later events showed how ill-informed the sports minister and the cabal behind this fraudulent news about the game of soccer played in the global arena.
Politicians and businessmen in Kerala could not make the difference between the kind of football played in other countries and in India. The Kerala Football Association, which controls the game in the state, has become a monopoly of certain politicians and their family members. Their craving to hijack the association and the game was not because of any love for football. It is only because of their vested business interests, and this has a lot to do with the license-permit raj.
The story about Messi and Argentina was reportedly floated by the Augustine Brothers of Kerala — Anto, Jose, and Rojy — who previously came to public attention over allegations of illegal tree-felling in reserve forest areas. The brothers also drew widespread scrutiny for their ambitious “Mango Phone” project, which they promoted as a challenger to Apple’s iPhone and marketed as a superior, battery-free device. They claimed that the Mango Phone, to be made in their factory, was more powerful and sturdy than Apple phones made in the US. They also claimed that the Mango phones do not require batteries. Newspapers with full-page advertisements featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar as brand ambassadors of Mango Phone appeared for days together. The brothers claimed that they are setting up a manufacturing unit at an investment of Rs.700 crore, while they were struggling to pay back the interest worth Rs.10 lakh for the principal amount they had borrowed from nationalized banks. The day they were set to launch the Mango Phone, the two brothers were arrested by the Kerala Police and remanded to judicial custody.[1]
The case was hushed up because of their political influence and their minority status. (In Kerala, the minority community members can do any act and get away using the Constitution as a screen). The Augustine Brothers reappeared after a brief hiatus, and this time as owners of Reporter Channel, a Malayalam news channel that was sinking because of a financial crisis.[2]
Anto Augustine, whose educational qualification remains a mystery, was projected as a political observer, and every evening he “enlivened” the Kerala audience with his sermons and “learned” opinions. Meanwhile, the brothers were accused of illegally felling exotic trees from forest areas marked as reserves and from lands which were given by the government to the tribes and tribals settled in the forests.
The allegation of illegal tree-felling earned the brothers the nickname of Maram Muri brothers (brothers who cut down trees), and the channel itself came to be known as Maram Muri Channel. It was at this juncture that Anto saw the potential offered by football and decided to bring the World Cup-winning Argentina team, led by Lionel Messi, to Kerala. V Abdul Rehman, Kerala’s minister for sports, was charmed by the sweet-talking Anto and saw the benefits that would accrue if Messi and team visit Kerala. The minister made a declaration about Messi donning boots in Kerala in November 2025. Who assured Anto that Messi would come to Kerala remains a mystery. It is not known whether he got any communication from the Argentine Football Association that governs the game in the country.
Football is big-time business in the rest of the world. The schedule of each national team is prepared months in advance by the respective football associations. A person from India can’t ask the Argentine or any other football associations to send their national squad or even the second division team to India at short notice. It is true that some foreigners, who claimed to be from Argentina, flew down to Kochi and inspected the Nehru Stadium where the match featuring Messi was to take place. The Argentines were not satisfied with the condition of the ground and asked their hosts to make improvements in the turf and other safety aspects of the stadium. Minister Rehman said the ground would be renovated at a cost of Rs.70 crores within 30 days. There is no need to tell that the contract for the renovation works were bagged by Reporter Broadcasting Company, owned by the Augustine Brothers. The Opposition Congress party leaders are of the view that the deal is enmeshed in corruption, and the minister finds himself in a quagmire of shady deals. The sports minister of a State should have basic knowledge about how football associations function in countries like Argentina, Brazil, and other European countries where football is big business. India has been ranked 136th by FIFA, the global body that administers the game of football.[3]
Finally, Anto himself came out with a startling disclosure. “If Messi fails to keep his word, he is in for major trouble. I’ll not leave the matter and drag all those involved in the deal to the Court,” said Anto. People in Kerala, especially the football crazy ones, believe what Anto said and relegated the issue to the back burner, only to be heated by some other persons who make offers that an average Malayalee cannot say no!
Way back in the 1990s, the scheme of sheep, teak & sandalwood plantations launched by fly-by-night operators made many Keralites lose millions of hard-earned money. It was a Ponzi scheme with the promoters offering interest/ dividends of unbelievable rates to the gullible investors. The company impressed the investors by paying the promised interest for five or six months and disappearing afterward. Newspapers in Kerala got millions as advertisement revenue and hence maintained total silence over the issue when the promoters vanished into thin air. The Augustine Brothers are no different from the likes of the proprietors of companies like Anubhav Plantations or Jayabharat Companies.
We do have laws to check the educational qualification and professional experience of doctors, engineers, and even school teachers. Fake doctors are prosecuted under criminal laws and jailed for years. But there are no laws or Acts to check the educational and professional credentials of journalists. Most of them are either terrorists like Siddique Kappan, the Popular Front leader who masqueraded as a journalist to get into the precincts of parliament or legislative assemblies. Though he was caught red-handed with arms and ammunition meant for distribution in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, the secular, intellectual, democratic, and sovereign journalists of the country staged agitations demanding the unconditional release of the innocent Kappen. He spent 23 months as a guest of the government before the apex court granted him bail. Had it been in any other country, Kappan would have spent the rest of his life in high-security prisons.
We should have a system to ascertain the antecedents of people like Kappan and Anto. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 has sections like 150, 151, 152 & 153 which take care of persons who operate against the sovereignty and integrity of the nation and even against governments of foreign states at peace with the Government of India.
We do have anti-nationals posing as lawyers who question the validity of the above-mentioned sections and label them as anti-people and anti-democratic. “Whoever by any act, or by any illegal omission, conceals the existence of a design to wage a war against the Government of India, intending by such concealment to facilitate or knowing it to be likely that such concealment will facilitate the waging of such war, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine,” says section 150 of BNS 2023. It is for readers to decide what is wrong with this law. Our learned lawyers who regularly appear for persons like Kappan are of the view that these sections are anti-people.
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
Reference:
[1] Explained: The what and why of Kerala’s rotten Mango phone scam – Mar 01, 2016, The News Minute
[2] Anto Augustine of Muttil, the man who rose from the illegal timber yards of Wayanad to the glossy studios of Reporter TV, and now to the fantasy league of international football, is back in the headlines – Reddit
[3] JLN Stadium renovation part of ‘shady deal’: UDF – Oct 28, 2025, ToI
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