A court on Monday agreed to issue an injunction requested by the Argentine Football Association (AFA) against President Javier Milei’s decree requiring the governing body to accept privately owned clubs into domestic leagues.
The ruling by the Federal Court of Mercedes suspends "the effects, terms and scope [of the decree[ until a definite sentence."
The mid-August decree issued by Milei gave AFA a one-year timeline for the Argentine Football Association (AFA) to amend its statutes and accept private sporting corporations or limited companies (SAD, in their Spanish acronym) in the professional league.
Under AFA’s existing rules, only non-profit civil associations are allowed to participate.
The suspended measure is a continuation of a mega-decree issued in late 2023 which, among 300 other reforms, opened the door to Argentine football clubs being able to convert themselves into sporting corporations instead of non-profit associations, as currently.
The courts had already ruled last January against the club reform programme yet the government resolved to advance with its regulation, prompting AFA to request the injunction.
The entry of limited companies has long been yearned by President Milei, who has declared himself on numerous occasions against the "impoverishment model" of Argentine clubs.
"A technical question: if AFA is opposed to limited companies, why permit [the players of] the national team to come from such companies? Could it be that results are important and the limited companies have the best [players]? No more impoverishing socialism in football," expressed Milei in a post on the X social network on July 12.
The initiative has provoked negative reactions from the main clubs, among them Boca Juniors, which posted on social media that the club’s authorities ratify the institution’s “character of non-profit association and the premise that the club belongs to its people and members who make it greater every day."
AFA President Claudio ‘Chiqui’ Tapia has refused to consider the possibility of privately-owned clubs in Argentina.
"We know which is the model of football we want for our institutions: non-profit civil associations," said Tapia at a recent AFA event.
"If anyone thinks that football is going to be saved with the sporting corporations, that is a total lie," remarked the AFA chief, who has overseen one World Cup and two Copa América triumphs for Argentina’s national men’s football during his tenure.
Argentina’s clubs are non-profit civil associations, in which fans pay membership dues that give them a right to vote for who they want to run their institutions, which often provide services in their local community and organise a host of other sports.
Milei’s privatisation push is backed by several other leading politicians, including former president Mauricio Macri, the conservative PRO party leader who spent more than a decade leading the giant Boca Juniors football club in Buenos Aires.
– TIMES/NA/AFP
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