Lionel Messi's Utah stop spurs proliferation of AI-generated photos

KEY TAKEAWAYS

AI-generated images falsely depict soccer star Lionel Messi, in Utah for a game, visiting numerous locales around Salt Lake City.
Commenters on the varied posts expressed a mix of amusement, incredulity and annoyance.
The Argentine superstar's team, Inter Miami FC, defeated Real Salt Lake on Wednesday at America First Field in Sandy.

SALT LAKE CITY — To judge by the proliferation of photos on social media depicting Lionel Messi, you'd think he dined at several Salt Lake area eateries ahead of Wednesday's Inter Miami CF-Real Salt Lake soccer game.

But don't be fooled. Messi wasn't out glad-handing, gorging on food and taking pictures with the public before heading to the pitch.

Thank — or curse — artificial intelligence for the phony depictions of the soccer superstar.

Lionel Messi's stop in Utah has spurred a proliferation of AI-generated photos with the soccer star, like this one. The fake picture was posted as a joke on Wednesday, April 22, 2026, to the Facebook page of Señor Pollo, a chain of Mexican restaurants in Utah that serve chicken. (Photo: Señor Pollo)

Jesus Ruiz, owner and operator of Señor Pollo, a Mexican chicken restaurant, posted a photo of himself with the Argentine soccer player but admitted it's a fake. He suspects the other photos of Messi making the rounds, many at Latino businesses, are also AI-generated.

"I have another friend that did it. He got a ton of likes and comments, too," Ruiz said.

Ruiz said he did it as a joke and people commenting on his post seemed to catch on. "Wow, that's about the sixth restaurant he went to before playing!" wrote one commenter, tongue in cheek.

Someone else posted another fake picture of Messi in the comment section of Ruiz's post, depicting the soccer player in his Inter Miami uniform inside an Artemis spacecraft with two astronauts, with Earth visible through a window.

Yet, another pondered the legal implications of posting such pictures. "Messi's lawyers (are) having a field day," she wrote.

Raul Palacios, the operator of the food truck El Callejero Peruvian Street Food in Roosevelt, posted two AI-generated pictures of Messi at his business. Even though he's Peruvian, Palacios is a fan of Messi and Argentina's national soccer team.

"It's to grab people's attention," Palacios said with a laugh.

Comments on the varied posts expressed a mix of amusement, incredulity and annoyance.

"I believed it at first," wrote a commenter on another fake post of Messi outside a Peruvian restaurant in West Valley City. "But it seems dishonest to me to use technology to manipulate customers."

Other fake photos show Messi getting his hair cut by a Utah barber and getting physical therapy for his neck.

Inter Miami defeated Real Salt Lake 2-0 on Wednesday. Ruiz was at America First Field with his son.

Messi, the real Messi, "looked great," Ruiz said. "What he did with the ball — you can tell he's amazing."

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.