The paternal line is from the Marche, a common name there. His paternal ancestor arrived in Rosario, Argentina from the Marche in 1893, where all of them have lived since. That's not very far back at all. I'm sure all his biographers have had no trouble checking the records. Their researches, often in the form of family trees, can be found online. If it was all incorrect, I'm sure he would have corrected the record.
His father's mother was or is Catalan, as one can tell by her surname Perez-Mateu. There can be no dispute about that since it's so relatively recent, and the surnames are provided. There are family trees on line also for her, with the towns near Zaragoza from which both her parents came.
His maternal grandfather's line is all Italian and also comes from Marche and and the maternal grandmother is, according to some family trees I've seen half-Italian and half old stock Argentinian. From her appearance in some photos, although not all, there might be some indigenous ancestry there.
http://www.gens.info/italia/it/turi...i-italia?cognome=Messi&x=26&y=13#.Y5veeHbMK3A
Messi and his mother:
Messi's maternal grandparents:
Messi's father:
Messi's paternal grandparents:
If that man isn't Italian, I'll eat my hat.
He has a really beautiful wife, also with an Italian surname, perhaps Sicilian,from his hometown of Rosario, if I remember correctly. The town must be really heavy in Italian migrant descendants. His three boys have the cuteness factor times 10.