Messi will be recognized as an honorary citizen in a municipality in Italy: the link of his roots that came to light

Lionel Andrés Messi Cuccittini will receive the title of honorary citizen of the municipality of San Severino Marche, located in central Italy. The local government will discuss the initiative at the next council meeting scheduled for Friday, March 25. In it, the Argentine footballer, born in Rosario on June 24, 1987, will be given citizenship because of his family roots on the mother's side that originated in that town.

The San Severino Marche networks published an official statement to announce the measure. “Paris Saint-Germain footballer and striker of the Argentine national team, of which he is captain and won the South American champion last year, Messi is considered one of the strongest players of all time and is among the top scorers in football history. Seven times the Golden Ball and best player in FIFA, Lionel is the son of Jorge Horacio Messi and María Celia Cuccittini. His distant origins are Italian: Angelo Messi, emigrated from Recanati in 1883″, explained the letter addressed to the Flea.

And the letter added that those responsible for carrying out the relevant search: “The connection with the City of San Severino Marche would derive from the champion's grandmother as a result of the investigation carried out by the journalist and sociologist of Marchigian emigration in Argentina, Fiorenzo Santini, of a passionate seven-year-old boy for football and its coach, Gabriel Cipolletta.”

Fiorenzo himself stopped to say a few words and explain Lionel's link with Italy. “Lionel's father once asked me about his wife's citizenship, but the surname Cuccittini in Italy does not exist. In the end I had the intuition that the name might have been misregistered when the Cuccittini emigrated from our country years ago. And it was actually like that. The original name of the Cuccittini family was, in fact, Coccettini and came from San Severino Marche. I found the historical certificate of the emigrant family: they first landed in Brazil and then traveled to Argentina and this certificate perfectly matches an Argentine document received from a cousin of Lionel's mother,” explained the journalist in charge of data collection.

In addition, they specified that “it took more than three years to complete the reconstruction of the ties between Messi and the city of San Severino Marche through the Coccettini family” and that “contacts have already begun to allow Mayor Rosa Piermattei to hand over the honorary certificate to Messi.” It is worth remembering that Argentina and Italy already have a date, time and venue to face for the intercontinental cup that they will compete for having been the last champions of the Copa America and Euro Cup, respectively

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