Jorge Messi had a secret he kept for years.
While the world knew him as Lionel’s father and representative, in Rosario a group of doctors knew something else: that he was the one who paid for the tickets, coordinated accommodations, and handled the paperwork so that nurses and hematologists from Víctor J. Vilela Children’s Hospital could train at Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona, one of the most important pediatric transplant centers in the world.
According to doctor Juan Di Santo, one of those who revealed the story after his death, Jorge personally took care of every detail; he even asked one of his sons to go wait at the airport for the professionals from Rosario.
Thanks to that invisible network he built, the hospital in Rosario managed to surpass 100 bone marrow transplants in children without health insurance, children who today have a life ahead of them thanks to a man who never wanted his name to be known.
