Not going to lie. I would never have heard of iDesign Gold if not for living soccer legend Lionel Messi who is also known as Leo Messi. If you haven’t already heard, the Argentine pro soccer player for Paris Saint-Germain F.C. lead the Argentine national team to victory in World Cup 2022 on December 18, 2022.
To celebrate the first FIFA World Cup win by the Argentine team in 36 years, Messi reportedly gifted gold iPhones to his World Cup-winning team and staff. The Albiceleste’s captain commissioned iDesign Gold to create 35 bespoke 24-carat gold iPhones, each engraved with the player’s name, number, the Argentine logo, and below it, the text “World Cup Champions 2022”. Though it is not clear what the staff’s devices have in place of the number.
Anyhoo, all told, Messi dropped 175,000 quids (around US$207,043) for these gold iPhones. But that’s probably a drop in the ocean for football’s second billionaire who tops the Forbes’ list of earners. It is great to be on Messi’s team even though the iPhone 14 Pro will be succeeded by the iPhone 15 in just a few months’ time.
2022’s World Cup win was a significant one for the Argentine team and for Messi. It is the first win by Argentina since 1986 and the third win for the country since 1978. Despite being a seven-time Ballon d’Or winner, a ten-time La Liga champion, and a four-time UEFA Champions League winner, this is the first World Cup win for Messi which also saw him bagging the Golden Ball for his outstanding performance. It was significant because World Cup 2022 would likely be his last world cup match.
P.S. Someone has called out this news as “fake news” saying that the brand (iDesign Gold) uses Messi to go viral and it “is not real”. I seriously doubt that. The news was up on so many traditional and non-traditional media outlets earlier this week, so if it is fake Messi would have responded by now. Plus, it would be super bold for Ben Lyons, CEO of iDesign Gold, to claim that he had personally delivered the 35 gold iPhone 14 to Leo Messi – even tagging the man himself on Instagram. Now, the real question is: why people can be so trigger-happy calling out fake news?
Images: iDesign Gold.
Source: Instagram (@complex.fc)/The Sun.