Argentina fans celebrate Messi's birthday in Kolkata

Kolkata - About 16,000 kms away from the Argentinean capital Buenos Aires, soccer fans here celebrated the 27th birthday of super star Lionel Messi by cutting a huge cake and organising a blood donation camp.

Teenagers and youths – all members of the Argentina Fans’ Club – celebrated the occasion with great pomp at Ganguly Bagan in the southern outskirts of the city where giant cut-outs of the soccer genius were put up with “Happy Birthday” written on them.

The cake, 170 cms in length and 107 cms in breadth, and shaped like a soccer field, was cut by young fans decked up in the Argentine national team colours of sky blue and white. Messi’s jersey number 10 was written at the back.

More than 600 people then gave their blood at a blood donation club.

“This is an annual event. Earlier we used to celebrate Diego Maradona‘s birthday by holding the blood donation camp. Now on Maradona’s birthday, we only cut a cake,” Argentina Fans’ club Secretary Uttam Saha told IANS.