\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Argentine military police officer Nahuel Gallo, who had been detained in Venezuela for over a year on counts of conspiracy and espionage, was released on Sunday night, with key assistance from the Argentine Football Association (AFA).<\/p>\n
Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno made the official announcement, highlighting \u201cits gratitude for the many efforts made by allied countries,\u201d which \u201chelped exert the international pressure\u201d to secure Gallo\u2019s release.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, it quickly became apparent that one organization, which played a key role in\u00a0 Gallo\u2019s liberation, went unmentioned: the AFA.<\/p>\n
The football organization is in a longstanding feud with the government of Javier Milei, which began over differences in the management model clubs should follow and has now expanded into legal battles and financial disputes.<\/p>\n
AFA broke the news of Gallo\u2019s liberation twenty minutes before Quirno, when they released a short statement thanking Venezuelan president Delcy Rodr\u00edguez and the Venezuelan Football Federation (FVF).<\/p>\n
\u201c[This] demonstrates that sport can also be an effective bridge for understanding and cooperation for humanitarian action of this magnitude,\u201d said the AFA, which also highlighted that \u201cthe bonds forged through soccer can contribute positively to the well-being of our nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
The AFA provided an airplane to facilitate Gallo\u2019s return to the country. Their message was accompanied by a photo of Gallo about to board the flight to Argentina, with AFA deputy secretary Luciano Nakis and the organization\u2019s director of institutional relations, Fernando Isla Casares.<\/p>\n
Shortly after Quirno\u2019s announcement, journalist Pablo Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez reported the talks between the AFA and FVF had started \u201cmore than a year ago\u201d when AFA president Claudio \u201cChiqui\u201d Tapia traveled to Venezuela for the 2025 South American U-20 Championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Congresswoman Marcela Pagano also credited \u201cthe AFA sports diplomacy\u201d as one of the keys to Gallo\u2019s return. Pagano, who was elected to Congress running with Milei\u2019s La Libertad Avanza, has since split off, arguing the President had \u201cveered away from what he preached.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tapia weighed in late on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to quiet, joint efforts by the Venezuelan Football Federation and CONMEBOL, today, after 448 days, Nahuel Gallo is returning to Argentina and can be reunited with his family,\u201d he wrote on his X account.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball unites us, transcends borders, and shows that it is always possible to build bridges for understanding and cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gallo arrived in Ezeiza at around 4:30 a.m. Argentina time, where his wife and the Minister of Security, Alejandra Monteoliva, waited for him.<\/p>\n
President Milei made no mention of his arrival in his start-of-the-year address to Congress on Sunday night, which he delivered for over an hour and a half.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Argentine military police officer Nahuel Gallo, who had been detained in Venezuela for over a year on counts of conspiracy and espionage, was released on Sunday night, with key assistance from the Argentine Football Association (AFA). Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno made the official announcement, highlighting \u201cits gratitude for the many efforts made by allied […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":39412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2885,7164,151],"tags":[4493,10479,135],"class_list":["post-39411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-claudio-chiqui-tapia","category-nahuel-gallo","category-society","tag-claudio-chiqui-tapia","tag-nahuel-gallo","tag-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39411","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}