Berlanga doesn’t rule out halting football amid accusations against the AFA | OneFootball

Fabián Berlanga, president of Vélez, did not rule out the possibility of a halt to the national tournaments in light of the tax evasion accusation against the Argentine Football Association, which involves some of its most important officials—a situation that, internally, is considered an attack by the government led by Javier Milei.

“If necessary, yes,” responded the top official of El Fortín when asked by TyC Sports whether any measures were being considered in this regard. This was after the Executive Committee meeting held on Monday morning at the Ezeiza complex, where he also stated that “it is very clear” there is a persecution coming from the Casa Rosada.

On December 12th, following a complaint from ARCA, the national tax collection agency, a case was opened for alleged systematic omission in the payment of taxes and the withholding of social security contributions between March 2024 and September 2025, for an amount exceeding 19 billion pesos.

President Claudio ‘Chiqui’ Tapia, treasurer Pablo Toviggino, general secretary Cristian Malaspina, and Víctor Blanco, former head of Racing, were summoned to testify by the National Chamber for Economic Criminal Matters, which will continue the investigation. They will do so in the first days of March.

Tapia and Toviggino had been banned from leaving the country, but the economic criminal judge Diego Amarante authorized ‘Chiqui’ to travel to Barranquilla, Colombia, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between this Monday and next Saturday, for official activities in his role as AFA president and CONMEBOL vice president, after posting a bond of $5,000,000.

Regarding this case, Berlanga stated that “it has been proven that everything is paid and that the charges against them have no basis, everything is up to date.” “A war is being declared against football that has nothing to do with this. They are trying to impose Sports Corporations (Editor’s note: from the Government) and the clubs have already made their position clear—they don’t want them,” he added.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.