OPINION:Was Messi sent off because of his criticism of CONMEBOL?

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Lionel Messi is one of the players with the best behaviour on a football pitch, as receives thousands of kicks and hardly says anything in response.

Against Chile in the Copa America third-place play-off, he was sent off after an incident with Gary Medel and the red card was unfair.



If the referee wanted his 15 minutes of fame on the CONMEBOL landscape then he got it.

VAR wasn't consulted, even though it can be checked for red card incidents.

Messi had complained about the South American federation and refereeing after Argentina's 2-0 loss to Brazil in the semi-finals.



"I hope CONMEBOL do something about these things, but I doubt it because Brazil manages everything," he said.

It may be that this criticism was in the subconscious of the Paraguayan referee Mario Diaz de Vivar when he showed Messi just the second red card of his career.



There are testing times ahead for CONMEBOL as they need to answer some questions to preserve their credibility.

In this tournament Argentina suffered in Brazil, but in the future Brazil might be the ones affected if playing in Argentina.

Things cannot stay the way they are as South American football needs to fight for its credibility.