On Tuesday, climate activists from Futuro Vegetal vandalised the façade of footballer Leo Messi’s mansion in Ibiza with red and black paint to denounce the “responsibility of the rich” in the climate crisis. In a statement, the group said that with this action of “non-violent civil disobedience” they want to denounce the continuation by the government of policies that aggravate the climate crisis, “as well as the unequal responsibility for it”.
The activists displayed a banner on the facade of the house and also in the garden with slogans in English in which they propose to “help the planet, eat a rich person and abolish the police”. The environmentalists highlighted the Oxfam report of 2023 which points out that the richest 1% of the world’s population generated the same amount of carbon emissions in 2019 as the poorest two thirds of humanity, despite the fact that the most vulnerable communities are those who suffer the “worst consequences” of this crisis.
According to the group, Messi’s mansion is an “illegal” construction that the footballer bought for an “exorbitant” 11 million euros. The spokesperson for Futuro Vegetal, Bilbo Bassaterra, said that “the law does not work the same for everyone”, as this week almost 200 workers have been evicted in Ibiza, while the Partido Popular “together with Vox are planning to legalise illegal buildings in exchange for payment”.
The organisation also criticised the police, which it considers a “repressive tool” to maintain “an order of things where the ruling classes know they can go unpunished”, as well as the Balearic government’s promotion of tourism as a “solution to all the islands’ problems”.
This is the second summer that Futuro Vegetal has chosen Ibiza for its protest actions. Last summer it sprayed black paint on the cherries of the Pacha discotheque and stormed the luxury beach club Blue Marlin in Cala Jondal with protest banners with the slogan: ‘Your luxury our climate crisis’.
They also threw paint at a private jet, a Lamborghini and the mega-yacht Kaos, owned by Nancy Walton Laurie, the billionaire heiress of the Walmart company.