A bizarre Lionel Messi ban at Real Madrid has reportedly been discovered, given his affiliation to their long-time arch-rivals FC Barcelona.
The Argentine has participated in 47 ElClasicos, winning 20 of those encounters and losing 16. He has also scored 26 goals against Los Blancos and assisted a further 14 strikes against them, and it now seems as though those memories still bring pain to the club.
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It has been discovered, through an experiment conducted by popular Spanish YouTuber Grefg, that the Spanish giants have seemingly banned fans from being allowed to put "Messi" on the back of Real's new jerseys.
The internet personality was on a live Twitch stream and recorded himself ordering a Los Blancos shirt online.
He tried to put the Argentine's name on it but, per the Mirror, was unable to do so as an error message popped up, which read: "Apologies, our personalisation policy does not allow the use of this name."
He then tried to get around the system by spacing the letters in the former Barca talisman's name, so that it read "M e s s i".
This method initially seemed to work, but after a short period his trick was picked up by what proved to be an intelligent system.
His order was cancelled, and he was then refunded.
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His actions, however, is believed to have led the Spanish side to further reinforce the ban on the 2022 FIFA World Cup winner's name on their shirts.
"You could say that we have made them put a new restriction on the website, and now they won't let you order it even if you write M E S S I with spaces," Grefg said.