The Wedding Gift

The guests at Lionel Messi and Antonella Roccuzzo's wedding, including several world soccer stars and show business figures, donated the equivalent of the cost of ten emergency houses for poor families, or less than 14,000 dollars.

This was confirmed on Wednesday by the non-governmental organization TECHO, to which the newly married couple allocated the money raised among the 260 guests instead of following the traditional gift registry.

"To turn our joy into an act of solidarity, instead of a gift we asked for a donation to TECHO", wrote the couple on the card that accompanied the wedding invitation, which took place on June 30 in Rosario, the hometown of the Barcelona star and Roccuzzo.

TECHO, an organization dedicated to combating poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean, reported in a statement released on their website and through social media that "so far 10 emergency houses have been raised", which is how they refer to the homes they help build in areas of high social vulnerability.

The organization did not disclose the exact amount raised. On their website, they inform that each emergency house has an approximate cost of 24,000 pesos (1,344 dollars at the current exchange rate). According to this calculation, the total donated by the guests would be around 240,000 pesos (13,445 dollars).

"The miserly wedding gift", titled the newspaper Clarín on their website, one of the most visited in Latin America. Regarding the amount raised, they commented that "it is striking and provokes indignation. Because these are soccer and show business stars, many of whom are in a comfortable economic situation".

Luis Suárez, Neymar, defender Gerard Piqué and his partner, Colombian singer Shakira, Carles Puyol, Samuel Eto'o, Cesc Fábregas, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Sergio Agüero, and former Argentine tennis player Guillermo Coria were some of the guests.

TECHO clarified that the donation channels "will remain open since we have registered some transfers from abroad that could not be successfully completed".

According to a survey conducted by the organization itself presented last December, there are around 2,432 informal settlements in Argentina - areas where eight or more families reside without property titles -, where 95% of their residents do not have access to running water, 98% lack sewage systems, and 73% have no formal access to electrical energy.