Messi spent $210,000 to buy 35 24-carat gold-plated iPhones to give to all of Argentina’s teammates and staff to celebrate the 2022 World Cup championship.
At the end of 2022, Messi completed his massive collection of titles when he and his teammates were crowned at the World Cup taking place in Qatar. Recently, Messi had a special way to celebrate this achievement.
Accordingly, Messi hired iDesign Gold, a company specializing in manufacturing luxury accessories for smartphones, to create 35 iPhones out of 24-carat gold. On each of these iPhones, there are names, jersey numbers of the players, the logo of the Argentine football team.
Not only for teammates, but Messi also gave these gold-plated iPhones to the coaching staff and other staff with the Argentina team present at the last World Cup.
Gold-plated iPhones are printed with shirt numbers, player names and the logo of the Argentina team (Photo: iDesign Gold).
It is known that these 35 gold-plated iPhones have just been completed and sent to the villa that Messi is renting in Paris. It is not clear how Messi will give this special gift to his teammates.
The iPhone that Messi gave his teammates is the iPhone 14 Pro Max, currently priced at about 28.5 million VND in the Vietnamese market. The product was launched by Apple in September last year, keeping the same design as the iPhone 13 Pro Max, but the front has been equipped with a Dynamic Island screen.
The Dynamic Island screen feature is only equipped by Apple on the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max duo, but many sources say that with the iPhone 15 series launched in 2023, Dynamic Island will appear on all versions, rather than exclusively for the Pro and Pro Max variants.
The total amount that Messi has spent on this expensive gift is more than 210,000 USD.
“Lionel Messi is the greatest player in history. He has been in contact with us for the past few months and has come up with a product idea,” said Ben Lyons, CEO of iDesign Gold. “He said he wanted a special gift for all the players, coaching staff and staff of the Argentine team to celebrate the victory at the World Cup.”
“I suggested gold-plated iPhones with the recipient’s name engraved on it and he loved the idea,” added Ben Lyons.