Argentina’s cherished football teams could be privatised under reforms introduced by Javier Milei, the country’s libertarian president.
In a move likely to antagonise the country’s passionate fanbase, the president is pushing a reform that would require clubs to allow private investment, effectively paving the way for their privatisation.
Currently, Argentine sides, including Buenos Aires giants Boca Juniors and River Plate, are collectively owned by their “members,” the Argentine equivalent of season ticket holders.
But this week, the General Inspectorate of Justice, a government agency now controlled by Milei loyalists, published a resolution requiring the clubs to drop their charitable status and register as companies by Nov 1.
The Milei administration believes that could attract more than £2 billion in investment in Argentina’s domestic league. Among other things, that would allow for the modernisation of often creaking stadiums.
But the legal status of the resolution is already being questioned, with the Inspectorate’s purview normally only covering the capital, Buenos Aires.
Arguably, Argentine football has little need of reform. The South American country is one of the top exporters of talent in the world.
Meanwhile, Argentina are the reigning world champions and on Sunday won the second consecutive Copa America, South America’s equivalent of the European Championship.
But Argentine club football has also long been plagued by deadly hooliganism, financial irregularities, economic instability and the outsize influence wielded by “ultras,” groups of hardcore fans sometimes involved in criminal activities.
Mr Milei, who briefly played professionally as a goalkeeper for Buenos Aires team Chacarita, posted recently on X, formerly Twitter: “No more revelling-in-poverty socialism in football.”
He accompanied his post with a graphic of Argentina’s first 11, showing the clubs where they played – all top European sides, including six Premier League clubs, plus Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami.
But the Argentine Football Association, whose statutes include a requirement that member clubs be not-for-profit, is vowing stiff resistance.
Its treasurer Pablo Toviggino warned that similar reforms had failed in neighbouring Chile, Brazil and Uruguay, whose top teams now experienced “poverty and misery” and were living in a “constant fantasy.”
The post Javier Milei plans to privatise Argentine football clubs appeared first on The Telegraph.
