\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t The Argentine Football Association (AFA) said it \u201cwon\u2019t give [the government] the right\u201d to intervene in football, in a 2,500-word statement it published on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It comes after Senator Patricia Bullrich reported the association\u2019s president, Claudio \u201cChiqui\u201d Tapia, and treasurer, Pablo Toviggino, to the ethics committee of CONMEBOL, South American football\u2019s governing body.<\/p>\n
In her complaint, the former Security Minister questioned what AFA was doing with \u201cthe money that comes in through advertising and the national team\u201d, after 54 luxury vehicles were seized in a raid on a 10-hectare mansion in Pilar, province of Buenos Aires, suspected by the judiciary to be owned by Tapia.<\/p>\n
The AFA\u2019s board defended itself from accusations of corruption, claiming it found \u201can institution in ruins\u201d when they took over in 2017, amid a crisis generated by the death of long-time president Julio Grondona in 2014, and an infamous election in 2015, which ended 38-38 despite 75 votes being cast.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince then, we began working to put the accounts in order, restore credibility, and return the institution to the prestige it deserves,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n
The communiqu\u00e9 goes on to enumerate a list of achievements, including the AFAs\u2019 current economic surplus \u201cwithout a single taxpayer peso,\u201d and the 1,300 staff the institution employs. It also insists TV rights and national team friendly match income goes into funding the clubs, in response to Bullrich\u2019s complaint.<\/p>\n
According to the AFA statement, the organization achieved all this despite constant attacks from different governments that \u201cchose the AFA as the target of its political ambitions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The statement lists \u201cconstant threats of intervention\u201d under Mauricio Macri\u2019s presidency, public complaints by Alberto Fern\u00e1ndez and a \u201ccoordinated attack\u201d since Javier Milei took office. AFA points to an \u201cattempt to obstruct the AFA Assembly,\u201d as well as the government\u2019s push to \u201cimpose sports corporations,\u201d and increasing the tax rate paid by football clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince we took over in 2017, we\u2019ve always prioritized football over partisan political issues,\u201d AFA claims. \u201cWe never allowed the Copa Am\u00e9rica and World Cup champions to be used politically. Our teams do not represent a political party, but rather a country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement goes on to list every Argentine team club and national team to feature in an international final since 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It also criticizes several Milei administration political projects like the labor and penal code reform bills, and mentions \u201cmore than 90,000 jobs lost from November 2023 to date\u201d and over \u201c20 major national companies and factories closing\u201d.<\/p>\n
Bullrich\u2019s complaint Earlier on Monday, Senator Patricia Bullrich announced she had filed a complaint with the ethics committee of CONMEBOL, the South American football confederation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey must thoroughly investigate this mafia that runs the AFA and tarnishes Argentine football,\u201d Bullrich posted on X.<\/p>\n
Bullrich\u2019s complaint comes as Argentina\u2019s judiciary is conducting a major money laundering probe into AFA-linked financial company Sur Finanzas and its owner Ariel Vallejo.<\/p>\n
Sur Finanzas has sponsored the Copa de la Liga Profesional tournament twice, and several Argentine clubs have worked with the company. In 2023, Vallejo said that he and Tapia had a \u201cvery nice relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n
The offices of the AFA and 17 football clubs were raided last week, including major names like Racing, San Lorenzo, and Independiente.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Argentine Football Association (AFA) said it \u201cwon\u2019t give [the government] the right\u201d to intervene in football, in a 2,500-word statement it published on Monday.\u00a0 It comes after Senator Patricia Bullrich reported the association\u2019s president, Claudio \u201cChiqui\u201d Tapia, and treasurer, Pablo Toviggino, to the ethics committee of CONMEBOL, South American football\u2019s governing body. In her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":18410,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2890,2885,66,474,59,67],"tags":[4351,4493,1368,4246,86,1369],"class_list":["post-18409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afa","category-claudio-chiqui-tapia","category-football","category-patricia-bullrich","category-politics","category-sports","tag-afa","tag-claudio-chiqui-tapia","tag-football","tag-patricia-bullrich","tag-politics","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}