Ribero: Argentine football in decline, leadership is woeful | OneFootball

Alberto Ribero, vice president of the Liga Esperancina de Fútbol, spoke out publicly and harshly criticized the current leadership of the Argentine Football Association (AFA), headed by Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia, denouncing what he considers to be systemic “referee corruption.” His statements, made in a recent appearance, did not go unnoticed and had a strong impact within the world of regional football.

Ribero began his remarks by referring to an incident with Club Estudiantes de La Plata, which in his view acted correctly in confronting the authorities: “What happened with Estudiantes wasn’t nice, but I thought it was right, because someone has to stand up to these kinds of authoritarian and corrupt leaders.” He clarified that his criticism of corruption does not necessarily refer to financial dealings: “I’m not talking about money, because I don’t know, I don’t see how AFA handles money, but yes, it’s corrupt in terms of arbitrary decisions, we all absolutely see it.”

The official expressed his total disagreement with the direction the main body of Argentine football has taken. “It seems to me that AFA is on a very wrong path, that’s my personal opinion, I could be very mistaken, but I don’t like it at all,” he stated.

Among the serious accusations, Ribero explicitly mentioned collusion with referees and pressure on clubs. He criticized the “threats from Tapia’s second-in-command, who is Toviggino, for example towards Estudiantes de La Plata, or for example towards anyone who doesn’t share their views, or who doesn’t play this corrupt game of fixing matches, of having referees in their pocket.”

To illustrate his points, he directly referenced controversial refereeing decisions that benefited Barracas Central, the club of which Tapia was president and with which he maintains close ties. He described with disbelief situations that occurred in recent matches: “We have to watch a Barracas match, the goal Barracas scored against Riestra the other day, all that was missing was for the Riestra players to lie down on the ground and say ‘go ahead and score,’ or almost; in the previous match, Barracas was awarded two penalties, neither of which were penalties, and I don’t know how many extra minutes were played.”

The vice president of the Liga Esperancina concluded that this situation is taking national football to a critical point. “I think Argentine football is in decline, with a lamentable leadership—people, I’m not saying they’re not capable, but, well, let’s see.”

Finally, Ribero expressed his hope for change: “Hopefully this is the beginning of the end for this AFA leadership, hopefully, because they are overstepping in so many ways, and it’s a bit like what happened with Kirchnerism in the national government, that is, now anything goes and they don’t even bother to hide it anymore.”

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