Lionel Messi’s Iranian doppelganger Reza Parastesh has denied tricking 23 women in his native country into sleeping with him after taking on the Argentine football icon’s identity to seduce them.
Spanish sports publications Marca circulated the accusations earlier this week that Parastesh had told the women he was in fact Barcelona’s all-time top scorer, which could be classified as ‘rape by deception’, illegal in some countries.
Parastesh has since addressed the issue on his Instagram page, where the ‘fake Messi’ insisted the claims were “fake news” that could harm his “reputation and credibility”, and claimed he would be seeking legal action in response.
“Hi guys, a false and dummy news is being trended in social media with the subject of raping 23 girls by me, please do not play with people’s reputation and credibility,” the 26-year-old wrote to his near 700,000 followers. Read more