Lionel Messi was crowned with his eighth Golden Ball at the Ballon d’Or award ceremony in Paris on Monday, making him the record eight-time winner of the prestigious individual award, ahead of Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe.
Apart from Messi laying hands on the Best Player of the Year 2023 award, he spoke to the Spanish internet personality Ibai Llanos and lashed out at him with a cynical smile on his face for sharing their private texts with the public in his previous stream.
Who is Ibai Llanos?
Ibai Llanos is a 28-year-old Spanish streamer on Twitch, a well-known influencer, and a renowned internet personality. He ranks among the most famous streamers in Spain and across the world, boasting a global following and success in the gaming industry.
Llanos is renowned for his variety of content creation on the internet, previously covering League of Legends, sports, and video podcast chatting content. In 2020, he opted for a full-time streamer role at Amazon Interactive Video Stream, an online streaming platform owned by Amazon Web Services.
The Spanish streamer currently has more than 15 million subscribers on Twitch. Ibai has also live streamed popular games such as Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto 5, Among Us, Valorant, and Fall Guys in his streams.
On Twitch, the 28-year-old streamer boasts the third-highest number of followers on the platform, with over 395 million views on his channel, making him by far the most famous Spanish-speaking streamer. In addition, he became the first person to win the ‘Streamer of the Year’ accolade consecutively three times at the annual Esports Awards.
Messi threatens Ibai after Ballon d’Or win
Ibai Llanos, due to his popularity, is friends with many sports personalities, one of whom is World Cup winner Lionel Messi. After winning a record eight Ballon d’Or Awards, Lionel Messi engaged in a live video chat with influencer Ibai Llanos in Spanish at the award event. However, soon the conversation turned sour after Messi accused him of making their personal text messages public.
Messi said, “Ibai, I’m mad at you. I didn’t like that you showed our messages to the public. You have no privacy.”Llanos responded, ‘But Leo, I blurred it out. It didn’t show.”
Despite denying the claims, the 36-year-old continued, “So what? You didn’t show it, but you said exactly what it said. I don’t like it. Next time, I won’t answer. I’m leaving you on read,” threatening to leave his messages on read from now on.
Whether Messi’s words were spoken in a joking or serious manner remains a question. But what do you think? Do let us know in the comments section.
