Messi’s old hometown braces for glam wedding

SECURITY is at the top of everyone’s minds in Rosario, Argentina these days. On Friday, soccer superstar Lionel Messi will be married there to Antonella Roccuzzo at a lavish celebration bringing together some of the world’s best-paid soccer players, just up the street from one of the city’s poorest and most dangerous neighbourhoods.

Some 21 members of the hugely popular FC Barcelona team, including Luis Suarez and Neymar, as well as stars like Gerard Pique – accompanied by partner Shakira – will be flying into this port city 300km north of Buenos Aires.

The luxurious City Center casino-hotel complex, where guests will stay and the ceremony is expected to take place, borders a poor neighbourhood known as the birthplace of the bloody drug gang Los Monos.

“Messi’s marriage – like the casino’s presence in the neighbourhood – is a metaphor for inequality,” said provincial official Carlos del Frade, author of several books on Rosario’s exploding drug trade. A mere 365 metres from the bright lights and neon of City Center, two people on a motorcycle opened fire on June 17 on four women belonging to Los Monos.

The attack claimed the life of Petrona Cantero, 56, the sister of Ariel Cantero, the historic leader of Los Monos, who is now serving a prison sentence.

Drug gang-linked violence has claimed more than 1 000 lives in the past five years in this gritty port city, Del Frade said.

Last year, the homicide rate in Rosario was double the national average of seven per 100 000 inhabitants, according to a report from the Ministry of Security of Santa Fe province, which includes Rosario.

In the Las Flores neighbourhood, just behind the City Center complex, Los Monos holds virtually total power, according to Del Frade, who said the gang amounts to the “de facto government” there.

Historically, Rosario has long had a strong working class, and today’s violence stems largely from widespread unemployment, political scientists and economists say.

Messi’s father, a metalworker there in the 1990s, emigrated with his family to Barcelona in 2000, amid the grave economic crisis then facing Argentina.

Today, the government in Rosario says it feels confident the safety of the illustrious visitor and his guests can be assured, regardless of the high crime rate.

“Rosario is prepared for the wedding,” city administrator Monica Fein said.

“Lionel chose to come get married here because it is his hometown and he feels comfortable here and we will do everything in our power to make it so.”

For now, the details of the planned security operation remain closely guarded. — AFP