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.
