Leo Messi, Princess of Asturias Award for Sports 2026

Argentinian footballer Leo Messi has been granted the 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for Sports, as announced today by the Jury responsible for conferring said Award.

Convened by the Princess of Asturias Foundation, the Jury for the Award was chaired by Teresa Perales Fernández, Marchioness of Perales, and was made up of Teresa Bernadas Porto, José Félix Díaz Fernández, Joaquín Folch-Rusiñol Corachán, Andrea Fuentes Faché, Juan Ignacio Gallardo Tomé, Patricia García Rodríguez, Santiago Nolla Zayas, Jennifer Pareja Lisalde, Alberto Suárez Laso, Joan Vehils Guasch, Theresa Zabell Lucas and Paloma del Río Cañadas (acting as secretary).

This candidature was put forward by David González Alonso, President of the Vetusta University of Oviedo Triathlon Club.

Lionel Andrés Messi Cuccittini, better known as Leo Messi, was born on 24th June 1987 in Rosario, Argentina. From a very young age he showed an extraordinary ability for football, training in the lower categories of clubs in his hometown, especially at Newell’s Old Boys. At the age of thirteen, he moved with his father to Barcelona to enter La Masia, the FC Barcelona youth academy, an institution where he completed his sporting and personal development. His exceptional talent allowed him to debut with the first team in 2004, starting a professional career that would lead him to become one of the best players in the history of this sport, according to experts. During more than fifteen years at the Catalan club, Messi consolidated a career marked by outstanding technical quality and extraordinary goal-scoring ability. After his time in Barcelona, he continued his career at Paris Saint-Germain and later at Inter Miami CF, a Major League Soccer club to which he is still currently linked. At the same time, he has been a key player for the Argentina National Football Team, with which he has garnered some of the greatest triumphs in international football.

Considered the most successful footballer of all time with forty-seven titles to his name, his professional career is characterized by an exceptional and highly consistent sporting impact over time. Messi is the player with the most games played and titles won with FC Barcelona, and starred in one of the most glorious periods in the history of the club and European football with thirty-five trophies between 2005 and 2021, standing out for his leadership on the field, his ability to unbalance and his vision of the game. He was a key player in the conquest of numerous national and international triumphs, including four UEFA Champions League titles, ten editions of La Liga, seven Copa del Rey titles, three Club World Cups, three European Super Cups and eight Spanish Super Cups. He is also the player with the most games played and titles won with the Argentina national football team, including two Copa América titles and, in particular, the winning of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, an achievement that definitively consolidated his sporting legacy. On an individual level, his performance has repeatedly placed him among the best footballers in the world thanks to his extraordinary consistency, his offensive creativity and his goal-scoring efficiency, receiving numerous awards that reflect the scale of his sporting career. These include multiple honours as the best footballer in the world, especially the Ballon d’Or, an award he has won eight times and which places him among the most decorated players in history. He has also been distinguished with other awards such as The Best FIFA Men’s Player on three occasions and the European Golden Boot as the top scorer in the continent’s leagues in six seasons. Among many distinctions, he also holds the Guinness World Record for most goals scored in a calendar year with ninety-one goals in 2012. Winner of the Laureus Award on two occasions, he is the only male footballer to have received it in the category of World Sportsman of the Year (2020 and 2023). 

On a personal level, Messi has represented a model of overcoming adversity –after suffering a growth problem in childhood– and is considered a global role model in sports for his consistency, humility and commitment to the team game, according to his fellow players. His career has also been recognized with various institutional honours and distinctions for his contribution to sport and social impact in his role as a UNICEF Goodwill ambassador (Prince of Asturias Award for Concord 2006) since 2010, and his important charitable work through the Leo Messi Foundation, dedicated to promoting access to education and health for children in vulnerable situations. 

As stated in the Statutes of the Foundation, the Princess of Asturias Awards are aimed at rewarding “the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work carried out at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions”. In keeping with these principles, the Princess of Asturias Award for Sports is to be granted to “careers which, via the promotion, fostering and advancement of sport and social commitment, have become an example of the benefits that practising sports can bring to people.” 
This year, a total of 27 candidatures comprising 12 different nationalities were put forward for the Award for Sports.
This is the sixth of the eight Princess of Asturias Awards to be bestowed in what is now their forty-sixth year. Previously, the Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts was granted to American singer and writer Patti Smith, the Award for Communication and Humanities went to the Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli, the Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research was conferred on British chemists David Klenerman and Shankar Balasubramanian and French biophysicist Pascal Mayer, the Princess of Asturias for International Cooperation went to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norway), and the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences was bestowed on British historian, journalist and essayist Timothy Garton Ash. The corresponding Awards for Literature and Concord shall be announced in the coming weeks (in said order).

As is customary, the presentation of the Princess of Asturias Awards will take place in October in a solemn ceremony presided over by Their Majesties The King and Queen, accompanied by Their Royal Highnesses The Princess of Asturias and Infanta Sofía.

Each Princess of Asturias Award comprises a Joan Miró sculpture symbolizing the Award, a diploma, an insignia and a cash prize of fifty thousand euros.