A controversial visit to the grave of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s father and third Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev by footballer Lionel Messi has visited Baku along with his teammates Luis Suarez, Sergio Busquets, and Jordi Alba, has created backlash on social media. 

The footballers landed at Baku Airport on Tuesday where they were greeted by businessman Adnan Ahmadzada, the former Executive Chair of SOCAR Trading. 

According to pro-government media, the players, all of whom belong to the US football club Inter Miami, arrived in order to participate in a charity match held at the Baku Crystal Hall on 11 December.

Before the game took place, Messi was taken on a controversial whirlwind tour of Baku, which was closely followed by social media users. The first photo published after his arrival to Baku was a photo with the grandchildren of Ilham Aliyev.

Later that day, Messi and his teammates visited the grave of Heydar Aliyev, Wednesday being the day before the anniversary of his death. 

This visit was disavowed on social media, with users posting that they preferred footballer Cristiano Ronaldo over Messi — an anonymous user even created a photo collage of Ronaldo with the grave of former Azerbaijani President Abulfaz Elchibay.

The last stop was to view the breed of Karabakh horses.

According to local media, tickets to the charity match cost between ₼10-50 ($6-30), and more than 10,000 tickets were sold over the course of one day. How much money was collected to donate to charity has not been announced. 

Following the match, Messi stated that he would like to thank everyone for organising this event.