Boca board reveals the truth behind the drop in memberships | OneFootball

The AFA released its annual report with data from the clubs that are part of the association, including Boca Juniors. Following the publication of the data in countless media outlets, the version that 40,000 members canceled their memberships due to poor management or being unable to enter La Bombonera began to circulate, however, this is not the case.

In the report published by the governing body of Argentine football, a reduction in members of the blue and gold team is shown. From one year to the next, Boca went from 323,586 to 282,644 members according to the data provided by the institution itself.

For some forgetful or uninformed people, the data is shocking: Boca lost 40,000 members in one year. This is easily used by opponents of the current management of the club from La Ribera to damage its image. However, the management led by Juan Román Riquelme explained this decrease in the number of members at the time.

The Explanation from Boca's Management

In an interview conducted by this medium in June 2025, Marcelo Lenga, vice president of the club's Board of Representatives, revealed the truth behind this data that came to light publicly after the Assembly in which the opposition used this same information to spread the same message: that Boca had a massive drop in members due to poor management or inability to enter the stadium.

The management led by Riquelme did not lose 40,000 members: they cleaned up the registry.

Lenga explained: “Before the assemblies, meetings are held with opposition representatives who ask us for information, contracts, and the number of members by category. They saw and made a comparison with the last one they had, which must surely be from 2023 when we took office, and of course, there was a difference. They immediately came out with: ‘Here we have something to hit with. 40,000 members canceled due to poor management and because they can't enter the stadium.’”

However, the official explained: “What happened was the following: first, there is not that amount, it is not reflected in the charts we have reported, but beyond that, what they have not asked is that since the current president took office, we started cleaning up the registry. In 2019, when we took office, we received almost 35,000 members who were not paying their fees and also deceased members.

He added: “As soon as we took office in 2020, some were six months behind, others a year, others three years, whatever. But since the Angelici administration did not clean up the registry, all those irregularities, members who were not paying, could not be removed because as soon as we took office in 2020, the pandemic hit us.”

Lenga continued by saying that at that time: “The club decided not to remove any member due to the extreme situation, the economic situation, and the context at that time. Therefore, they waited almost two and a half years until the effects of the pandemic ended. Then came the election year, the president took office, and everything in the registry began to be regularized.”

In the same vein, he added: “These members will never pay again, they are sent an email, and if they do not respond, they are removed because the statute stipulates that if you fall six months behind in your fee, the club can remove you. That is what the club's main law stipulates because if you are notified ‘you are going to pay’ and you do not pay, it is because, either you can no longer maintain the fee, you do not show up, or because you are disinterested in continuing to be a member. But here it was more than six months, they were members with many years of arrears.”

The interview with Marcelo Lenga, a Boca official, in La Número 12 in June 2025.

On the other hand, the official said that in the previous administration, led by Jorge Amor Ameal, “an agreement was made with RENAPER” to cross-check data of “deceased members so that those cards cannot be used in any way and are canceled and the necessary actions are taken.”

Marcelo Lenga emphasized “we did everything correctly, which is why the number of members in the information decreased,” however, “it is not reflected in the income. Because the income remains similar if you take the income from three years ago, apply the inflation index for updates, which were the increases in the fee, and compare it now, you will realize that it is roughly the same amount of the membership base as two years ago. What does this mean? That the members who were removed were not paying. There is the fundamental proof of why this operation they carried out was absolutely false and harmful.”

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