Padel scandal: APA drops Florencia Guerra Sodero over antisemitism | OneFootball

The Argentine Padel Association (APA) confirmed this Thursday the decision to remove player Florencia Guerra Sodero from the women’s team that will represent the country at the Pan American Games to be held in Paraguay, due to antisemitic comments she posted on social media.

In the statement signed by its board of directors, the APA warned that it “categorically condemns the antisemitic expressions spread on social media from the personal accounts of player Guerra Sodero, a member of the Argentine delegation qualified for the 2026 amateur open Pan American padel championship, to be held from October 21 to 24 of this year in the city of Asunción, Paraguay.”

Guerra Sodero sparked outrage on social media after posting a story celebrating her inclusion on the team that would compete in the Pan American championship and asking her followers to answer a poll in which Jews were excluded. “You are not welcome,” she emphasized at the end of her post on her Instagram profile.

“Representing Argentina requires the utmost respect for human dignity. Anyone who expresses themselves against those principles cannot, at the same time, invoke the national jersey,” the APA added in the text sent to the media.

The APA statement.

In this regard, the organization specified that it “decided to provisionally suspend the player from the national delegation and open the disciplinary procedure provided for in the Disciplinary Code of the International Padel Federation (FIP), in which the player will be able to fully exercise her right to defense.”

After the controversy and backlash erupted on social media, Guerra Sodero deleted her Instagram account, the platform where she had posted her story with the antisemitic comment.

“Today I want to tell you that I’m going to have the enormous honor of representing Argentina in a Pan American championship. And there’s no one better than a stylish Peronist like me to do it. For that reason I’m going to leave you a poll that you have to vote in NO MATTER WHAT. Friends, acquaintances, family, Peronists, Radicals, libertarians, Belgrano fans, rich, poor, middle class. There is no kind of distinction (except Jews: you are not welcome),” Sodero Guerra wrote.

Guerra Sodero’s post on her social media.

In any case, that post was not Guerra Sodero’s only antisemitic message. Earlier, from her X account, which she also deleted, she had spoken out against the Jewish community. “Which Jew will end up with the tolls on all the roads, huh?” she wrote when Milei’s government announced in July of last year that it intended to put about 4,400 kilometers of national highways out to tender.

Claudio Avruj, former Secretary of Human Rights during Mauricio Macri’s presidency, welcomed the APA’s decision and said that “there must be no place in our society for antisemites.”

“With her hateful messages, she is unworthy of representing our country,” the former official stressed.

The Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations (DAIA) spoke out in the same vein, insisting on social media that “antisemitism and every form of discrimination are incompatible with the values of sport and with the dignity of people.”

“We value the decision adopted by the Argentine Padel Association, which categorically condemned the antisemitic expressions spread on social media by a member of the national delegation and decided to provisionally remove her and begin the corresponding disciplinary procedure,” DAIA highlighted.

The government also spoke out and praised the APA’s decision. In a statement, the Secretariat of Tourism, Environment and Sports led by Daniel Scioli stressed that it “supports the decision adopted by the Argentine Padel Association (APA) in response to the antisemitic expressions spread on the personal social media account of Florencia Guerra Sodero, a member of the Argentine padel delegation.”

“From the Secretariat we agree with the APA that every form of discrimination, whatever its motive, is incompatible with the values of sport. Representing Argentina and wearing the national jersey is an honor and carries great responsibility, which requires commitment to the values of respect, inclusion and equality,” the text concludes.

“It was a very bad joke and she is going to apologize,” the defense from Guerra Sodero’s family

In addition to shutting down her social media, Guerra Sodero chose to remain silent amid the scandal triggered by her antisemitic comments. Coming to her defense was her uncle, who said it was “a very bad joke” and that the padel player would apologize.

“She has no hatred or anything against the Jewish community. It was a very bad joke, an irony,” Vladimir Sodero told TN. He then continued trying to justify his niece’s post: “She had her Instagram set to private, it’s not as if she directly made it public so that the Jewish people would feel offended.”

“She has no hatred or anything against Jews, that surprises me. That’s why I came out to defend her, mainly as a lawyer. It was a very bad joke, it was irony,” Sodero insisted.

He also tried to justify his niece’s comments with the argument that, because she is young, she does not know “what happened, the suffering, the Holocaust, and everything the Jewish people went through.”

“I know people who told me they were in the Second World War and had to come to this country. I know where it comes from, but young people don’t know and they also aren’t taught that it’s wrong,” Guerra Sodero’s uncle added.

He also said that the padel player would ask for forgiveness for her comments. “She is going to apologize, she is seriously shaken because she didn’t grasp the magnitude of the stupid thing she said

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