The prosecution and garnishment for withholding 19 billion confirms the announced end of a Kirchner administration that destroyed the league, the clubs and harms the national team.
It is also important to remember the arrogance and impunity with which they were handled. The way to threaten DTs or presidents was pornographic, as Toviggino did with Carlos Tévez and Juan Sebastián Verón. He dedicated a tweet to the latter in 2025, which is very funny to the eyes today. A threat that was turned against the AFA treasurer: “Take good care of yourself Multicolored Beret”
. The tweet with Toviggino's threat to Verón, because Estudiantes did not make the hall of honor to Rosario Central.
Argentine football deserves better. It deserves a professional, transparent AFA focused on improving the league and empowering the National Team, not on supporting a corrupt political model, with clubs imprisoned by fear of the failures of referees of
very dubious quality.
As long as Chiqui Tapia and his Kirchnerist-Massist environment remain in control, the deterioration will continue. Today's processing is just a symptom. The underlying problem is much more serious: driving that prioritizes power and savings over soccer
.
It's time for clubs, fans and public opinion to demand real change. Because if we continue like this, neither the National Team nor the league will survive Tapia's legacy
There is something deeper and more annoying: Kirchnerism always looked at the National Team with hatred when it couldn't control it. We saw it in the attacks on Messi every time he didn't align himself politically, in the criticism of Scaloni for not being “progressive” or in the discomfort with a team that represents real Argentina, not the militancy. For them, soccer is just another box or an instrument of power, not a space of national glory. That's why they don't mind the league rotting: as long as the AFA remains a fief, the rest is secondary. The Selection is only useful when it wins and photos can be taken
.
Today, months before the World Cup, we have its president prosecuted for withholding millions that did not belong to him, with a ban on leaving the country and an admirable local football. Tapia and Toviggino respond with the classic script: “Political Persecution”. But the numbers are eloquent only in this cause: 19 billion improperly withheld. That's not the fault of Mileism nor. It's mismanagement and an alleged crime.
As the Argentine national team is preparing to defend the title in the 2026 World Cup, the house that should take care of it — the AFA — crumbles in corruption scandals.
This Monday, March 30, 2026, the economic criminal judge Diego Amarante prosecuted and seized Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia and his right hand man, Pablo Toviggino, for undue withholding of contributions of more than 19 billion pesos between 2024 and 2025.
This is not an administrative error. The judge was clear: Tapia, as president with legal representation, and Toviggino, with signature on all checks and control of funds, deliberately failed to deposit the taxes withheld from the employees. They had money from sponsors, but everything indicates that it was to improve their personal economy.
The crime of misappropriation of taxes and social security resources is aggravated by the organizational structure and repetition. The debt is now being “regularized”, but the fact has already happened: they withheld what was foreign and used it as their
own cash register.
This is not an isolated event. It is the logical result of a leadership that came to power with strong support from Kirchnerism and that never stopped acting with that logic: cash, friends, personal enrichment and disregard
for healthy institutions.
Chiqui Tapia is not a neutral soccer leader. It comes from the Peronist-Kirchner kidney. His former father-in-law, Hugo Moyano, was a pillar of Kirchnerism, and his rise in the AFA was consolidated in the years of Alberto Fernández. But the most direct and current link is with Sergio Massa: Toviggino, the treasurer prosecuted today, has a very close relationship with the former minister and presidential candidate of Union for the Fatherland. Massa put him in the General Secretariat of the Chamber of Deputies and from the AFA they jointly promoted the “No to SAD” campaign against club freedom and the possible influx of private capital
.
Tapia and his environment were functional to Massism and Kirchnerism in the extreme defense of the status quo of Argentine football: bankrupt clubs, life leaders and zero transparency.
And that model has already borne its bitter fruits: Tapia managed to destroy the local tournament. The Argentine League became an absurdity with 30 teams, zones, playoffs and an inflated schedule that no one understands and few want to see. Real declines were eliminated, inconsequential games multiplied and the competitive level plummeted. The format is a nonsense that prioritizes the survival of friendly clubs over spectacle and meritocracy
.
Arbitrations tainted by scandals, obvious favouritism and calendar saturation are the norm. Meanwhile, the Selection — the only asset that succeeded — also suffers the consequences of a corrupt AFA focused on its own businesses.
