The Argentine Football Association is going through one of the biggest institutional and judicial crises since the death of the former president of the entity Julio Grondona. The series of complaints for alleged financial irregularities, tax evasion, improper withholding of contributions, money laundering and fraudulent administration placed the leadership headed by Claudio Tapia and its main political and financial operator, Pablo Toviggino.
For this reason, the Ministry of Justice made the decision to send observers to the AFA headquarters after a request promoted by the General Inspection of Justice (IGJ), an organization that had been demanding access to balance sheets, contracts, administrative documentation and financial movements of the entity. The designated observers were the accountant Ruben Miguel Pappacena and the lawyer Agustín Ortiz de Marco, who received powers to inspect accounting books, commercial agreements and economic operations carried out by the leadership of the AFA during recent years.
The impossibility of the observers to enter the AFA headquarters in the last hours ended up becoming a key episode in the institutional scandal that surrounds Tapia and Toviggino. What happened was not an isolated or merely administrative event; the closure of the Viamonte headquarters appeared as a new sign of resistance by the AFA leadership in the face of the audit ordered by the Ministry of Justice and the General Inspection of Justice (IGJ).
The observers sent by the Ministry of Justice arrived at the historic headquarters at 1366 Viamonte Street with the objective of formally beginning the audit of the entity’s balance sheets, contracts, financial statements and financial documentation. The measure had been ordered for 180 days based on an official resolution promoted after complaints of alleged million-dollar irregularities in the administration of the AFA. But when they arrived they found the doors closed and no staff to welcome them. They left the formal documentation request under the door and later went to the Super League offices, also included in the investigation.
The episode acquired even greater political gravity because at the entrance to the headquarters there was a sign indicating that the administration was moving to Mercedes 1300, in Pilar, province of Buenos Aires. That detail immediately became the center of controversy. The national government suspects that the attempt to move the legal headquarters of the AFA to Pilar responds to a strategy designed to get out of the control orbit of the IGJ, an organization with jurisdiction in the City of Buenos Aires.
The IGJ had previously objected to that move. According to reports, the supposed new administrative address in Pilar would not have the necessary operational structure to function effectively as an institutional headquarters. For investigators, the transfer could constitute a maneuver aimed at hindering state control and hindering the audit. Therefore, the fact that the observers arrived and found the headquarters closed was interpreted as a possible indirect obstruction to the inspection task.
The audit seeks to clarify accounting inconsistencies that, according to the complaint filed by the IGJ, would reach some 450 million dollars in the balance sheets of the last eight years. The observers had the power to review accounting books, financial movements, commercial contracts, links with private companies and operations related to companies investigated for alleged money laundering and diversion of funds.
Among the companies under suspicion are TourProdEnter and Sur Financefirms linked to commercial and financial operations of the AFA that are investigated for possible money triangulations. Also under analysis is the creation of the so-called Argentine Football University (UNAFA), whose administrative and financial structure would have presented irregularities and lack of formal authorization.
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