How Argentina’s football leaders may have been the real winners of the World Cup 2022 in Qatar

Since 2021, the Argentine national football team has won everything it has competed for: the 2021 American Cup, the 2022 Finalissima, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and the 2024 American Cup. It is estimated that the Argentine Football Association (AFA) earned hundreds of millions of dollars in prize money, sponsorship, friendly matches, etc.

However, what should have been a cause for celebration and pride turned into corruption and shame.

Claudio Fabián “Chiqui” Tapia and Pablo Ariel Toviggino, president and treasurer of the AFA, have been in the spotlight since November 2025 due to ongoing legal proceedings, scandals, and journalistic revelations.

The evasion of social security contributions by AFA employees; the discovery of a mansion in Pilar, Buenos Aires province, attributed to Toviggino, through front owners; the diversion of funds to “commercial and collection agents” linked to Tapia and Toviggino abroad; the possible money laundering by the financial company “Sur Finanzas” under court investigation, to mention the most significant ones.

AFA was even paid for a friendly match in India that was never played – and will likely never take place – and AFA could face international litigation for collecting most of the money.

The most intriguing legal case, and the one causing the greatest concern for the authorities of Argentina’s football governing body, is the investigation into Tapia, Toviggino, and other members of the institution for tax evasion of around USD 15 million between March 2024 and September 2025.

The complaint was filed by the Agencia de Recaudación y Control Aduanero (ARCA) – a national agency responsible for tax collection, social security, and customs control – against the AFA for the improper withholding of taxes and social security contributions from its employees.

Although the AFA submitted the documents requested by the Justice, the prosecutor in the case indicted the president, treasurer, and other members of the institution, as alleged responsible parties for failing to pay these contributions.

The courts discovered that, in December 2024, the AFA recorded deposits in its bank accounts totalling USD 43,727,383 and, during 2025, approximately USD 348,806,923.

In other words, the AFA had the funds to pay its employees' social security contributions and taxes, and an investigation is underway to determine why it did not do so. The courts believe that the AFA used that money to generate profits through fixed-term deposits and other methods.

Tapia, Toviggino, and three other members were summoned for questioning, which is scheduled to take place during March 2026. For this reason, the judge has prohibited them from leaving the country. Exceptionally, Tapia was granted special permission to travel to Colombia and Brazil for official activities— to Colombia as AFA president and to Brazil in his role at the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL). Nevertheless, a second request he submitted to travel to Venezuela was denied.

In response to the court summons, the AFA decided to call a strike and not play the ninth round of the top-flight professional league and other divisions, which was scheduled for March 5 to 8. Whether coincidental or not, this is the period during which the president and treasurer of the AFA were due to appear in court to provide explanations to the authorities. They never appeared, but sent written statements denying any wrongdoing.

An alliance for money laundering?

In addition to reporting the misappropriation of taxes and social security contributions from its employees, the ARCA agency filed a report against the financial company “Sur Finanzas,” its owner, Ariel Vallejo, and its treasurer, Micaela Sánchez, for alleged money laundering and tax evasion.

The link between at least 17 clubs, the “Professional Football League” – AFA’s internal body responsible for organizing, managing, and promoting the First Division championship – the AFA itself, and the owner of Sur Finanzas, Ariel Vallejo, is the AFA’s powerful president Tapia, who opened the doors of Argentine football to the finance company allowing it to sponsor several clubs, advertise in numerous stadiums, among other things.

The AFA recommended that clubs turn to Sur Finanzas to cover their liquidity needs. In addition, the Professional Football League deposited funds from television rights into Sur Finanza’s accounts, also through the Neblockchain platform.

The investigation detected irregular transactions through virtual wallets that moved over $1.6 billion between 2022 and 2025, using fictitious taxpayers and low-income individuals to carry out million-dollar transactions far beyond their declared economic capacity. 

From small institution to business empire

Sur Finanzas began as a financial institution with a community-based reach in the southern Buenos Aires metropolitan area. In just a few years, Vallejo's company rose to become a sponsor and provider of financial services to the highest levels of Argentine football, including clubs.

In just five years, the financial institution managed to open a dozen branches and offer services such as personal and small-business loans, currency exchange, safety deposit boxes and a digital wallet, among others. It is believed that part of more than $1.6 billion moved through these operations was deposited through another Sur Finanzas service: cryptocurrencies.

The investigation aims to show that loans to financially struggling clubs and sports sponsorships may have been a front, and that the real objective was to launder funds originating from betting and to hide the money through fictitious transactions and front men.

To this end, Sur Finanzas allegedly used various mechanisms, such as providing financial assistance to clubs facing economic difficulties, thereby legitimizing the money through the repayment of funds.

For this purpose, according to what the authorities are trying to establish, the clubs reportedly agreed to sign loan contracts for amounts higher than what they actually received. The inflated amounts were then registered in public records, effectively legalising the funds, and the club then returned the money to Sur Finanzas.

In other words, for example, a club requested a loan for USD 700,000. However, they signed for a loan of USD 1 million. When the club repaid the USD 700,000, Sur Finanzas legalised USD 300,000 that never left its accounts.

In other cases, and in the absence of liquidity, clubs would have paid off loans with future income, such as broadcasting rights, which, when passing through their bank accounts, were laundered at the time of transfer to the finance company.

AFA’s international commercial agent

The biggest scandal that the AFA is facing is about the management of its funds and what its executives did with them.

In December 2021, the president of the AFA secured the support of all members of the Executive Committee to appoint an unknown company as the association’s international commercial agent: TourProdEnter LLC, a firm created just four months earlier in the state of Florida, United States. 

On paper, the company is headed by Erica Gabriela Gilette, the partner of theater producer Javier Horacio Faroni, a personal friend of Tapia.

Over the next four years, Faroni and Gilette handled a fortune, bolstered by Argentina’s World Cup win in Qatar 2022. TourProdEnter LLC accumulated more than $260.5 million in four US banks: more than USD 146 million in Bank of America, another USD 72.4 million in Synovus Bank, USD 41 million in Citibank, and the remaining funds at JPMorgan & Chase Co, according to an analysis of confidential bank records that were opened during litigation following the intervention of the U.S. justice system.

TourProdEnter LLC's income came from three major sources: sponsors of the Argentine national team, television broadcasting rights, and revenue from friendly matches. 

AFA missing millions from Adidas

The largest contributors to the Bank of America’s account were Adidas (USD 78.6 million), Argentina Football Distribution, a company that operates the streaming service known as “AFA Play” (USD 18.7 million), and Reporter Broadcasting Company (USD 9 million). The latter was one of the sponsors of the friendly match that the Argentine national team was going to play in India in November 2025, which was postponed and has yet to be rescheduled.

Two of these companies also appear in TourProdEnter LLC's Citibank account: Adidas (USD 15.1 million) and Argentina Football Distribution (USD 5.1 million). In addition, Quest Holdings (USD 7.5 million), part of a group of companies that acquired sponsorship for the Argentine national team’s friendly matches to be played in Asia between October 2025 and March 2026, according to a document available at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A few days ago, the U.S. courts added other bank accounts held by TourProdEnter LLC at PNC Bank, through which another $15.5 million was managed. This brings the total amount collected on behalf of AFA to USD 276 million.

But only a tiny fraction was used to pay for AFA’s activities and expenses, both inside and outside Argentina. The vast majority of the USD 276 million discovered so far in five banks in the United States did not end up in AFA bank accounts, and more than USD 50 million was transferred to shell companies, many of which closed after receiving the funds. Only the organisers of these transactions know where the money ended up after the closures. In the financial statements that the AFA submitted to the Inspección General de Justicia (IGJ) – the Argentine agency that registers, supervises, and controls commercial companies, civil associations, and foundations based in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA) – TourProdEnter LLC appears only once, listed as a debtor, alongside “Sur Finanzas” and 12 other companies that owe money to the AFA, according to the balance sheet updated as of June 30, 2024, the latest one submitted by the organization led by Tapia.

AFA and Tapie refused to submit the statement corresponding to 2025.

A mansion bought with soccer money?

Some of the money may have left a trace after all.

The police are investigating who the real owner of a mansion in Pilar, in the province of Buenos Aires, is. The 10.5-hectare property features a helipad, swimming pool, soccer field, paddle tennis court, an equestrian track, and a garage where 54 luxury and collectable cars were found. Inside, there is also a wine cellar with collectable wines, works of art, designer furniture, and much more.
On paper, the owners are two people who do not have the declared financial means to have even purchased that property. Luciano Nicolás Pantano and his mother, Ana Lucía Conte, a retiree who received assistance from the Argentine government.

Both paid USD 1.8 million for the property, which the Justice valued at approximately USD 20 million. The main hypothesis under investigation is that the real owner is Pablo Toviggino, treasurer of the AFA.

When the property was raided by the authorities, an AFA bag with Pablo Toviggino's name embroidered on it and a plaque from Tapia's club, Barracas Central, dedicated to Toviggino, were found. In addition, several of the cars found on the property had blue registration cards – a document that authorises a third party to drive a vehicle that is not theirs – in the name of Toviggino's relatives.

Pantano, who was president of the Argentine Civil Association of Futsal and Beach Soccer from May 2021 to March 2022, had in his possession an American Express card linked to an AFA corporate account, with average monthly spending of USD 45,455 between January and December 2025; several of these payments were to cover the mansion’s expenses.

The Justice is not only investigating who the real owner of the mansion is, but also where the funds came from to purchase the property, build everything, purchase the cars, and construct the helipad – and to maintain it. Authorities believe the money was diverted from the AFA.

All the fronts involving Tapia and Toviggino in the AFA are interconnected in one way or another. Not only because there are common actors and companies, but also because in every case it involves Argentine soccer money that never reached the AFA, and even less the clubs.