Messi Takes Spain's Princess of Asturias Sports Award

Lionel Messi has added one of Spain's most prestigious honours to a trophy cabinet already crowded with World Cups, Ballon d'Or awards and Champions League titles. The Inter Miami forward received the 2026 Princess of Asturias Award for Sports in Oviedo, the capital of the northern region of Asturias. The jury praised both his playing career and his charitable work for children's welfare.

The prize is often called Spain's version of the Nobel, and its sports category has gone to a long list of athletes and teams over the years. Messi is the first footballer to take the award as an individual, which gives the honour a particular weight in a sport that has rarely been singled out in this way.

The connection to Spain runs deep. Messi arrived at Barcelona as a boy from Argentina, came through the club's youth academy and became the centre of a team that dominated European football for much of the 2000s and 2010s. He won ten La Liga titles and four Champions League trophies at the Camp Nou, and many fans still regard that period as the peak of his career.

His ties to the country did not end when he left Barcelona in 2021 for Paris Saint-Germain, or when he later moved to Inter Miami in 2023. The jury's decision also recognised his work away from the pitch, including the charitable efforts he has pursued through his foundation for many years.

Whatever the award's place in the wider sporting calendar, Oviedo was a fitting setting for the moment. Messi now joins a roll of honour that includes many of the country's sporting greats, and it confirms that his legacy in Spain remains firmly alive.