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    The Kid Who Wore The Messi Plastic Bag Shirt Is Going To Meet His Hero

    FC Barcelona are reportedly arranging for the child to fly to Spain to meet Lionel Messi.

    In January, an image of a child who had modified a blue and white plastic bag to resemble a Lionel Messi Argentina shirt was shared heavily by people in Kurdistan and Turkey.

    FOTO | Irak'ta küçük bir çocuğun poşetten yaptığı Lionel Messi forması...

    The image was soon being shared throughout the world, and a campaign was launched to try and find the mystery child, so he could be given a real Messi shirt, and possibly even meet his idol.

    RT to help us find this kid so we can get him the Messi shirt he deserves...

    Shortly after the original image went viral, another image of the child was tweeted, this time showing his face.

    Dont think i need more proof but here's just to confirm it even more

    There had been hoax stories in which people had come forward claiming to be the child in the photograph.

    Robin Hirori, a football fan from Sweden, says he was sent the above image by a Facebook profile claiming to be that of the boy's brother, and tweeted the image in response to the hoax stories.

    Attempts by BuzzFeed News to contact the Facebook profile from which the photo was sent were unsuccessful, but the name being used by the profile was Hamayon Ahmadi.

    After a week of searching, I was put in contact with an "Ahmadi" family in eastern Afghanistan, who claimed to be the child's family. As proof, they sent me an image of the boy wearing the plastic bag and holding up a sign on which he had written my name.

    The boy is called Murtaza Ahmadi, and he lives with his family in a remote village in the Ghazni province of Afghanistan.

    A source close to Messi told BuzzFeed News in January that he wanted to do something special for the child after seeing the image and being touched by the creativity the boy had shown in creating the replica T-shirt.

    BuzzFeed News have contacted Barcelona seeking confirmation they have had dialogue with the Afghanistan FA, and will update this post with their response.

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