Court rejects Claudio Tapia bid to leave country freely for 60 days | OneFootball

Economic criminal court judge Diego Amarante today denied a request from Argentine Football Association (AFA) president Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia to leave the country for 60 days.

Amarante is investigating Tapia and the AFA for the alleged misappropriation of social security contributions and other tax irregularities, in an amount exceeding 19 billion pesos. The judge has already questioned Tapia, AFA treasurer Pablo Toviggino, and other Argentine football officials, and must now determine the procedural status of all of them.

Tapia had requested permission to remain outside the country for two months, but the judge found the reasons given by the football executive to be imprecise. The documents he submitted were outdated, and, according to judicial sources, the judge also considered unfavorable aspects of his prior conduct.

“While this court has recently granted the individual authorization to leave the national territory, the current request is framed in a generic manner that differs substantially from the exceptional and limited permits that were the subject of previous rulings,” the judge’s decision states.

It adds: “The lack of specificity regarding destinations and the absence of a fixed schedule in the request at issue hinder the objective of ensuring the defendant’s continued subjection to the jurisdiction of this court.”

The judge also stressed how “unusual” Tapia’s requests to leave the country are, given his public role at C.E.A.M.S.E., for which he earns “approximately” 19 million pesos per month.

“All of this without even mentioning, of course, how unusual it is to learn of the situation of someone holding a public office for which he receives — according to his own statement during questioning — approximately 19,000,000 pesos per month, while at the same time stating that he spends more than a third of his time abroad, attending commitments related to other activities.”

Tapia’s permissions to leave the country have already been an issue in the case. Judge Amarante denied him the possibility of traveling to Caracas, Venezuela.

Although he did not present it as a reason before the courts, Tapia allegedly wanted to travel there to return on the same flight as gendarme Nahuel Gallo, who was detained in Venezuela in December 2024 and released on March 1.

The courts denied him that possibility, partly because of the country’s weakened diplomatic ties with Venezuela, but also because Tapia did not request “permission” to do so, and instead merely “informed” the court that he would travel there as part of a new leg of a trip that had in fact been authorized by the courts.

“On a previous occasion, after being granted permission for specific destinations, the defendant sought to unilaterally modify his itinerary once he was already outside the national territory,” Judge Amarante recalled today in his ruling.

In today’s ruling, Amarante referred to Gallo and to Tapia’s alleged undisclosed intention to repatriate him: “The publicly known events that followed reveal another possible purpose of that trip, allowing the inference that the justification for the reasons for travel given by the defendant to this court was — at the very least — partial,” the judge said.

Tapia and Toviggino, the AFA’s treasurer, are accused of failing to pay social security contributions for players and employees. According to the initial complaint, there were obligations totaling $7,593,903,512.23 that were not deposited in due time and proper form, divided into two categories: tax withholdings and social security withholdings. In the expanded complaint, the reported amount rose to $11,759,643,331.62.

In his defense before the courts, Tapia argued that the AFA had committed no crime because an administrative resolution by the Ministry of Economy suspending tax enforcement actions was in effect, and therefore no crime could be said to have occurred.

He also stated — as Toviggino did — that a large part of that debt had already been paid off, a fact that has already been confirmed by the courts, which are nevertheless investigating whether the delay in payments may have constituted the crime of tax misappropriation, punishable by prison terms ranging from two to six years.

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