Paintings of Lionel Messi raise more than €900,000 for One in 11 campaign

The worlds of international soccer and fine art rarely collide, but last week in London, at a charity auction in Sotheby's, one of the world's most famous players, the FC Barcelona star and Argentina captain Lionel Messi was the unexpected star of the show.

Two paintings depicting the footballing maestro sold for a combined total of £682,000 (€925,000).

Beautiful Messi Spin Painting for One in Eleven, by English artist Damien Hirst, sold for £365,000 (€495,000) and Lionel Messi and a Universe of Flowers, by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, went for £317,000 (€430,000).

The auction was held to benefit One in 11 (see 1in11.org), a worldwide campaign launched earlier this year by the FC Barcelona Foundation, Reach Out to Asia (Rota) and Unicef, which aims to help the one in 11 children worldwide who are not going to school and who are therefore "not getting the start in life they are entitled to".

The campaign plans to extend educational opportunities to marginalised and vulnerable children, beginning with pilot projects in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal. The sale kicked off with a bespoke football designed by Murakami and signed by both Lionel Messi and the artist, which sold for £45,000 (€61,000).