Last month saw Lionel Messi crowned Ballon d'Or winner for a record eighth time after leading Argentina to glory at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. 

Now a football team from Messi’s home city of Rosario has paid homage to their Scottish-born inaugural president with their new third jersey.

Rosario Central’s new saltire-based design top is inspired by the flag of Scotland with a white cross on a blue background, yellow sleeves and collar.

The team, which plays in the Argentine Primera División, is based in Rosario in the central Argentine province of Santa Fe, around 185 miles northwest of Buenos Aires.

The club was officially founded in 1889 by a group of railway workers, taking its name from the British-owned Central Argentine Railway company. 

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Rosario Central’s official kit supplier, Umbro, gathered a group of the club’s fans to present the third kit. 

"Our birth, our origin. We present the new official Rosario Central third shirt. From Scotland to the world and since 1889 for life”, the sports equipment manufacturer announced on social media.

The new kit will be worn for the first time by Rosario Central in their forthcoming league fixture against River Plate - Argentina’s most decorated club side - at the Estadio Gigante de Arroyito - Rosario’s home stadium - on Saturday. 

One of the details on the jersey is the inclusion of ‘12/24/1889’, which remembers the date when the group of railway workers formed the club and elected Scot Colin Bain Calder as its first president. 

Calder was born on April 16, 1860, in Dingwall, and emigrated to Rosario to work for The Central Argentine Railway Company as the manager of the painting workshop. 

Before the foundation of the club in 1889, Calder, helped obtain land from the railway so that a playing field could be built to allow for football matches to be played. 

Calder would remain in office as president of Rosario Central - then called Central Argentine Railway Athletic Club - until 1900, before he was replaced by another Scot in Dundee-born William Taylor Paul. The club then changed its name to Rosario Central in 1903. 

Calder died in 1907 at the age of 46 years old, and was laid to rest in El Cementerio de Disidentes in Rosario.

In 2014, Rosario’s municipal council paid its own homage to Calder by renaming a street adjacent to Rosario Central’s stadium ‘Calle Colin B. Calder’ after him. One of Calder's great-grandsons is believed to still live in Rosario and is said to maintain contact with Dingwall.

The homage to Calder by Rosario Central comes just a few months after the governing body of football in Argentina honoured the Scot known as the ‘father of Argentine football’.

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In August, the Argentine Football Association (AFA) launched a new match ball for the Copa de la Liga Profesional (Professional League Cup) ahead of the start of the competition, which is currently being contested by 28 teams - including Rosario Central - ahead of the final on December 16. 

The ‘Argentum 1893’ ball, which has been made by Adidas, includes a special design celebrating the 130 years of the AFA with the colours of the national flag of the Argentine Republic, as well as the three stars symbolising Argentina's three World Cup titles.

The ball also contains a graphic in homage to Gorbals-born Alexander ‘Alejandro’ Watson Hutton, who founded the AFA in February of 1893. 

The graphic charts Wilson Hutton’s journey from his native Scotland to Argentina, where he introduced and helped spread football as an activity in educational institutions. 

Depicted within the graphic is a ship at sail, a map of South America, an image of a school, a football pitch and an old leather football, as well as an inscription which reads ‘A W Hutton’ and the words ‘padre del fútbol Argentina’ (father of Argentine football’).

Born in 1853, Watson Hutton, who was orphaned at a young age, emigrated to Argentina to take up a post as rector of Escuela Escocesa San Andrés (St Andrew’s Scots School) in Buenos Aires, which still exists today.

The school, which was established in 1838 to cater for the large Scottish community in the Argentine capital who came to work on the railways, is the oldest school of British origin in South America. 

At the beginning of 1884, Watson Hutton, then aged 30, founded Buenos Aires English High School, which would become home to the very first football pitch in the country.