Messi, Taliban, Burqas and Qatari money on new Charlie Hebdo cover | Satirical magazine raises funding for fundamentalist group

The French satirical magazine Charlie hebdo took to the streets with a number whose cover fuses the Taliban’s triumph in Afghanistan with the fury of the arrival of Lionel Messi at Paris Saint-Germain. Cartoonist Biche shows three people, possibly women, wearing a burqa, and with Messi’s name and number 30 on the back, much like the Argentine’s jersey at PSG.

“The Taliban. It was worse than previously thought,” the cover title read, which puts the magnifying glass on the fact that the club of PSG belongs to Qatari sheikhs, and the African country is accused of financing fundamentalist groups in the Arab world.

In fact, Messi played several seasons at Barcelona with the advertising of Qatar Airlines on the shirt. For the moment, PSG has not reacted against this recovery and the intrinsic idea that the Parisian club’s sale of shirts with Messi’s name and number 30 helps fund Afghanistan’s new rulers. Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, president of PSG, is a man very close to the royal family of Qatar, which finances the team in the French capital.

The satirical magazine was particularly critical of Islam and this led to tragedy on January 7, 2015, when twelve people were killed in its newsroom, in retaliation for its corrosive humor against Muslim fanaticism.