Has Argentina issues Messi’s face on Argentine Currency?

Argentina is not issuing 1000 peso note featuring Messi. Argentina Central Bank officials “jokingly proposed” the idea of Messi’s picture being included in the note, This meeting took place before the Argentina-France final match.

With Argentina winning the FIFA World Cup title social media is flooded with images and videos of star Footballer Lionel Messi. 

The Argentine team members were given an unbelievable welcome by their hometown. Now here is a claim that Argentina is preparing to give another recognition to Messi, which is spreading virally in the social media, that Argentina is about to issue a 1000 Argentine peso currency with Messi’s image on it. The posts have been shared with a picture of a 1000 peso note.

The caption of the post states,“ Argentina issue First official currency (picture of Messi and World Cup winning team)”.

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Fact Check- 

A Google search using the keywords Messi and currency revealed that many national and international media outlets have covered news about the currency featuring Messi’s image. Here is the news from The Hindu’s sports news website Sports Star, which cites El Financiero, an Argentine financial daily.

Argentina Central Bank officials held a meeting. But the fact is that in that meeting the bank “jokingly proposed” the idea of Messi’s picture being included in the note. Moreover, El Financiero reported that this meeting took place before the Argentina-France final match and that it was only a joke and not real.

 According to the report “”And before you think otherwise this option was ‘jokingly’ proposed by members of the Argentine Central Bank, although the most enthusiastic directors, such as Lisandro Cleri, a fervent supporter of Boca Juniors, and Eduardo Hecker, a follower of Independiente , agreed on that a banknote with this design would awaken the collecting spirit of Argentines,” El Financiero reported.

In further search we found a report published on 22 December in Bloomberg Línea,  a Latin American-based media with a caption Bill with the figure of Messi: Argentine authorities deny that it is under consideration” .

According to the report, sources from the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic (BCRA) and the mint, Casa de la Moneda dismissed the possibility that progress could be made with the printing of a bill with the figure of the captain of the world champion team.

Further we checked the BCRA’s website and found that the last Argentine 1000 pesos banknote was issued in December 2017. According to their website, the note features Rufous hornero, the national bird of Argentina, and was the fourth bill out of six that were issued as part of their series called “Argentina’s native fauna.”

Conclusion

Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the viral video to be False. Argentine government is not planning to issue a 1000 Argentine peso currency with Messi’s image on it.