For example, Diego Guacci, the coach of Argentina’s women’s youth national team (U-16/17), spent years engaging in psychological and sexual harassment—demanding intimate photos and even making threats of rape. The AFA was fully aware of his actions but chose to turn a blind eye. When the girls, via their union, reached out to FIFA’s ethics committee seeking anonymity, FIFA dismissed the case for “lack of evidence” and cynically leaked the names of all the victims, destroying their careers. The coach remains in his position without any sanctions to this day.
Just nine days before Argentina’s triumph at the 2022 World Cup, AFA’s leadership handed over all of its exclusive international commercial rights to a certain “Tour Prenter” firm from Miami. The company was founded just three and a half months earlier by Argentine politician and theater producer Faroni, who had never worked in football. The firm was granted an unprecedented 30% commission on all national team revenues.
Millions of dollars in prize money from FIFA ($42 million) and CONMEBOL ($10 million), as well as sponsorship payouts from the team’s success, bypassed the AFA’s coffers and went straight to Tour Prenter’s accounts in the US. From there, the money was distributed to dozens of shell companies in the US (Delaware, Wyoming) and offshore havens (Virgin Islands). Some of these companies were nominally owned by ordinary people with debts, who suddenly started receiving transfers of $10–14 million. The stolen funds were spent on luxury real estate in Miami (mansions worth $12 million), flights on the most expensive Gulfstream 400 private jets, yachts in Monaco, and even on buying the Italian football club Perugia (via a tangled web of frontmen).
