AFA and governments legal fight deepens with fake invoice lawsuit

The legal battle between the Argentine Football Association (AFA) and the Milei administration has intensified after they exchanged lawsuits on Thursday. The ARCA tax bureau accused Argentine football’s governing body of falsifying invoices, while the AFA filed a suit alleging abuse of authority. As reported by newspaper La Nación, ARCA has accused the AFA of moving over AR$376 million (just over US$253,000) out of the country without proper documentation between 2023 and 2025. The ARCA reportedly detected the irregular cash flows during auditing and control procedures. They believe the transfers may be “designed to conceal the real destination of the money and violate existing fiscal control mechanisms.” The lawsuit comes at a time when the AFA, led by Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia, has been in hot water over allegations of a string of financial misdeeds, including allegations that a financial company was used to channel improper transactions, and its leaders attempted to hide ownership of a huge mansion in Buenos Aires province through frontmen, among other accusations. AFA fights back Soon afterwards, the AFA filed a complaint against Daniel Vítolo, the head of Argentina’s General Judicial Inspection Board, for “abuse of authority and violation of the duties of a public official.” AFA lawyer Gregorio Dalbon announced the lawsuit on X, accusing Vítolo of disclosing confidential information before notifying the AFA, as well as discussing allegations, sums of money, sanctions, and inspections on radio and TV, thereby “using his position as a tool for pressure and conditioning.” The Judicial Inspection Board pressed charges against the AFA after it found gaps in the organization’s balance sheet while investigating a sudden increase in revenue following the Argentine men’s national team’s victory at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. According to investigators, there is a lack of detail about where that revenue came from and where the money ended up. A long-standing feud This is the latest chapter in the Milei administration’s long battle with the AFA. They have taken shots at each other at every available opportunity in a complex feud that stretches beyond the football pitch, roping in politics, money and society.  It began in the run-up to the 2023 elections, when clips of Milei advocating for the “British model” of clubs as stock corporations — rather than Argentina’s nonprofit civil association model — became a talking point.  Argentine clubs quickly voted against allowing private sports corporations in their statutes.  Milei struck back in December 2023. One of the provisions in his massive, deregulatory “mega-decree” removed the clause requiring organizations to be nonprofit civil associations in order to compete in Argentine sports. Litigation started almost immediately: a federal court upheld the Salto Football League’s petition challenging the changes, effectively halting that article of the decree.  In January 2025, a recording went viral of Juliana Santillán, a deputy from Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party, asking an Argentine football club to file a complaint to become a private sports corporation. In the recording, Santillán could be heard asking a board member at the club to present documentation that would make it into a test case in the dispute. The recording triggered widespread condemnation.  In October 2024, the government issued a decree stating that a scheme allowing clubs to pay lower taxes on ticket and TV rights sales would end within six months, claiming it failed to cover demands, and later raised their taxes from 7.5% to 18.6%. The announcement prompted strong condemnation from AFA, who claimed the government had withdrawn from negotiations after requesting that they present a “deficit-free project.”