Claudio Tapia was photographed holding the World Cup replica at every opportunity after Qatar 2022. Standing ovations followed him everywhere. Three years later, he's being booed on the pitch during Argentina friendlies and faces two to six years in prison on tax evasion charges.
That's the landscape Argentina's players are trying to ignore as they prepare to defend their title at the 2026 World Cup in June and July.
Tapia's problems come from multiple directions. The government of President Javier Milei — locked in a battle with AFA over whether Argentina's member-run clubs should be privatised — filed a complaint that led to formal criminal charges against him in March for allegedly failing to pay 19 billion pesos (roughly $13 million) in social security contributions. AFA denies it and calls it a smear campaign. The courts disagree enough to have opened a criminal investigation.
The domestic game is a mess too
Beyond the legal trouble, Tapia has managed to alienate fans with league reforms that most people see as self-serving. After securing re-election in 2024 — a year before his second term was even up — he suspended relegations and expanded the top Argentine league to 30 teams. For context, Europe's elite leagues run with 18 to 20.
"The schedule is awful. And they don't play each other in a round-robin format over the course of a year, so there is no way for anyone to truly boast of being the best," said Osvaldo Santander, a San Lorenzo supporter who's saving $12,000 to travel to the United States and watch Argentina at the World Cup. River Plate and Estudiantes La Plata have withdrawn from AFA's executive committee entirely. The rest of the clubs still back Tapia, but the stadiums are a different story.
Messi has stayed conspicuously quiet. He played in the March friendlies and left Buenos Aires without making a single public statement. Tapia used to flood his social media with photos alongside Messi before national team windows. Those posts have dried up — a detail Argentine commentators are reading as distance, and they're probably right.
"Let it be clear that we are football players, we came here to play football," midfielder Rodrigo De Paul said after the Zambia friendly. "We don't get involved in politics, we don't understand those kinds of things." It's the right answer. Whether the players can genuinely insulate themselves from the noise is another question.
The preparation problem is harder to dismiss
History offers some reassurance. Italy won the World Cup in both 1982 and 2006 while their domestic game was drowning in scandal. As columnist Ezequiel Fernández Moores put it: "Football is unusual in these matters, a world of its own."
But there's a more concrete concern than federation politics — the quality of Argentina's World Cup preparation. Their warmup opponents have included Indonesia, Puerto Rico, Angola, Mauritania, and Zambia. None from Europe. Their final two warmups in June are against Honduras and Iceland, neither of whom are going to the tournament. These fixtures were chosen for their commercial value to AFA, not for what they offer the coaching staff.
Going into a World Cup without having tested yourself against European press, shape, or set-piece threat is a genuine risk. Argentina's title odds should still command respect — this is Messi's squad, Scaloni's system, and a team that's won 15 of their last 20 international matches. But a champion walking into the tournament having played Mauritania and Zambia as its toughest warmups is not ideal preparation, whatever the politics.
"Winning is difficult, and winning twice is even more difficult," De Paul said. "If we want to defend what we've achieved, the whole country has to stand together." Fine sentiment. The AFA is currently not helping with that.
