Argentina's World Cup title defense clouded by turmoil in domestic soccer scene

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Argentina's World Cup title defense clouded by turmoil in domestic soccer scene

2026-04-24 04:05 Last Updated At：04:10

BUENOS AIRES (AP) — After Argentina won the World Cup in Qatar 2022, the president of the Argentine Football Association carried a replica of the trophy at every public appearance. He received standing ovations.

Claudio Tapia had reason to consider himself part of the sporting achievement. The AFA leader took a chance on the inexperienced Lionel Scaloni as the national team's coach, a move many say helped Argentina win its first World Cup title in 36 years.

Now, as La Albiceleste prepares to defend its title in June-July, Tapia finds himself at the center of a crisis that has shaken the country's soccer landscape.

The public mood has turned against him and AFA due to corruption investigations, unpopular changes to the domestic soccer league and a string of World Cup warmups against low-ranking opponents.

Meanwhile, Tapia, 58, has been locked in a power struggle with Argentine President Javier Milei over the ownership structure of the country's soccer clubs.

In late March, Tapia was charged with tax evasion following a complaint filed by Milei’s government. Hours later the soccer federation boss was booed while receiving a plaque on the field before Argentina’s friendly match against Mauritania in Buenos Aires.

National team players, including team captain and soccer icon Lionel Messi, have tried to stay away from the conflict as they prepare for the World Cup.

“Let it be clear that we are football players, we came here to play football,” midfielder Rodrigo De Paul said last month after a friendly match against Zambia. “We don’t get involved in politics, we don’t understand those kinds of things.”

Tapia made it a habit to post photos of him and Messi on social media ahead of national team matches. The recent dearth of such photos was seen by Argentine soccer commentators as a sign of distance between the AFA president and the team's most famous player.

Messi, who played with the national team in their recent friendlies in March, left Buenos Aires without making any statements.

Milei's long-standing feud with Tapia stems from the libertarian president’s desire to privatize Argentina's member-run soccer clubs, a move AFA has resisted.

Late last year, tax authorities filed a complaint against Tapia and other AFA executives for allegedly failing to pay 19 billion pesos ($13 million) in social security contributions between 2024 and 2025. The courts opened a criminal investigation and in March filed formal charges against Tapia, who could face a sentence of two to six years in prison.

AFA denies the accusations and claims that Tapia is the victim of a smear campaign.

Tapia has also faced widespread criticism among soccer fans for reforms to the domestic soccer leagues, which critics say had more to do with strengthening his internal power than improving the quality of the competitions.

After securing re-election in 2024, a year before the expiration of his second term, he suspended relegations for that season and expanded the top Argentine soccer league to 30 teams. Most of the top leagues in Europe have 18-20 teams.

Critics say the new format has diluted the quality of league.

“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 60-year-old San Lorenzo fan.

Tapia still has the support of the leaders of most of Argentina's soccer clubs, except River Plate and Estudiantes La Plata, who have withdrawn from AFA's executive committee. It's a different situation in the stadiums, where fans frequently hurl insults at the AFA president.

Santander will travel to the United States with his son to cheer on Argentina during the tournament. The journey will cost approximately $12,000, an amount they saved up over four years.

He hopes the players will be unaffected by the crisis in Argentine soccer “given that most of the players play abroad and aren’t living the day-to-day reality that we are.”

Some point to Italy winning the World Cup in 1982 and 2006 despite domestic leadership crises and corruption scandals.

“The connection between the administration and the football can sometimes be logical, and sometimes it isn’t. Football is unusual in these matters, a world of its own,” said Ezequiel Fernández Moores, a columnist for the newspaper La Nación who wrote several books on Argentine sports.

More decisive for La Albiceleste’s performance in the World Cup could be their questionable preparation with friendlies against second-tier teams, none from Europe, in order to obtain greater commercial benefits for AFA.

Argentina has faced teams much lower in the FIFA rankings, such as Indonesia, Puerto Rico, Angola, Mauritania, and Zambia. Their final two warmup matches will be in June against Honduras and Iceland, neither of whom qualified for the tournament.

De Paul, Messi's teammate at Inter Miami, called for unity as the team gets ready for the tournament co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.

“Winning is difficult, and winning twice is even more difficult," he said. “If we want to defend what we’ve achieved, the whole country has to stand together.”

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

US stocks fall on a shaky Wall Street as Brent oil briefly barrels above $107

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks pulled back from their record heights on a shaky Wall Street. The S&P 500 fell 0.4% Thursday to halt its weekslong rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.9%. Tesla helped drag the market lower on concerns about how much it’s spending to build factories. Stocks also took a hit after the price for a barrel of Brent crude to be delivered in June briefly jumped above $107. Uncertainty continues about what will happen with the Iran war. That sent the S&P 500 suddenly down as much as 1.3% before it trimmed its loss.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are pulling back from their record heights on a shaky Wall Street Thursday following mixed profit reports from Tesla and other big companies. Oil prices, meanwhile, are jumping on worries about what will happen next in the war with Iran.

The S&P 500 fell 0.6%, halting a weekslong rally that had erased all its losses because of the war and then carried it to all-time highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 246 points, or 0.5%, with an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was down 1.1% a day after setting its own record.

Tesla helped drag the market lower after sinking 4% even though it reported better results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors focused instead on a big jump in Tesla’s forecast for spending this year, as it builds factories to make robots and other products.

“You should expect to see a very significant increase in capital expenditures,” Elon Musk told investors late Wednesday, “but I think well justified for a substantially increased future revenue stream.”

ServiceNow dropped even more, 17.6%, even though its results for the latest quarter matched analysts’ expectations. The company has been under pressure, along with much of the broad software industry, because of worries that rivals powered by artificial-intelligence technology could undercut its business.

In the oil market, prices leaped as uncertainty built about what will happen with the Strait of Hormuz. A ceasefire is still in place between the United States and Iran, but oil tankers aren’t able to get through the narrow waterway off Iran's coast to exit the Persian Gulf and deliver crude to customers.

The U.S. military on Thursday seized another tanker associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, a day after Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards took control of two vessels in the strait. President Donald Trump also said Thursday he ordered the U.S. military to “shoot and kill” Iranian boats that deploy mines to gum up traffic in the strait.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude to be delivered in June rose 3.1% to settle at $105.07 and at one point topped $107. That peak coincided with a sudden drawdown for stocks, and the S&P 500 fell as much as 1.3% before it almost as instantly erased half the loss.

The price for a barrel of Brent to be delivered in July, which is the more popular contract for traders, settled at $99.35 after getting as high as $101.

More expensive oil has hurt airlines in particular because of the industry's already big fuel bills, and stocks diverged in the industry following the latest profit reports.

American Airlines Group rose 1.3% after reporting better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. American said demand was strong for flights, and it saw the nine best weeks for revenue intake in its 100-year history.

Southwest Airlines lost 4.2% after reporting weaker quarterly results than analysts expected. It said it would not give an updated forecast for profit this year because of “the ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty.”

Also on the losing end of Wall Street was IBM, which sank 8.4% despite reporting better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected. Investors focused on potentially discouraging numbers underneath the surface, including decelerating growth in trends for its software business.

Paramount Skydance fell 5.6% after Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approved selling the business to Paramount. Warner Bros. Discovery slipped 1%.

Texas Instruments helped limit Wall Street's losses after breezing past analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter. CEO Haviv Ilan said the semiconductor company is benefiting from growth led by industrial and data center customers, and it gave forecasts for profit and revenue in the spring that cleared analysts’ estimates.

The 17.4% leap for Texas Instrument’s stock was the strongest single force pushing upward on the S&P 500.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe and Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.9%, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 sank 0.7% for two of the bigger losses.

South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.9% after the government reported better-than-expected economic growth for the start of the year, boosted by strong exports, particularly of computer chips used in the AI boom. Semiconductor supplier SK Hynix said its revenue for the latest quarter jumped more than analysts expected largely because of AI-related demand.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury erased an early dip and rose to 4.32% from 4.30% late Wednesday as oil prices accelerated.

A report in the morning said slightly more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, but the number is still at a historically healthy level. A separate, preliminary report on U.S. business output from S&P Global also suggested growth is improving a bit from its near-stagnation seen in March.

AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.