“Leo said 4-4-2 was an outdated formation and a switch to 4-3-3 – the formation in which he lines up every week for his club side Barcelona – would give the magazine a fresh look and feel,” says ‘ousted’ editor Hitesh Ratna. “Once on board, he was fully committed to his editorial responsibilities, green-lighting features and interviews, some of which involved former team-mates who couldn’t refuse a call from the world’s best player.”
Messi becomes only the second player to guest edit the magazine in its 24-year history, following in the footsteps of Brazilian Ronaldo, who took over the reins for an issue in 2014. “This collaboration is a testament to the ongoing strength of the FourFourTwo brand,” says FourFourTwo’s global editor-in-chief, David Hall. “Securing arguably the game’s greatest ever player as our guest editor is confirmation of the respect FourFourTwo commands in the world of football.”
FourFourTwo Business Director, Mike Walsh says “When you gain access to a player with the unique global interest that Messi possess it is crucial that we create tailored content across all of our media platforms to satisfy our audiences. Editing the magazine is the centrepiece of the activity but our passionate football fans will also see social content featuring Messi throughout June, web articles diving deeper into his achievements and a feature documentary as the next in our series of highly successful YouTube mini-documentaries, FourFourTwo Films.”
