Fútbol para todos: Aníbal Fernández, Capitanich, Segura to stand trial for fraud

Two key former officials who served in former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s administration will face an oral and public trial over alleged fraudulent activity surrounding a controversial scheme that nationalised the broadcasting of local football matches.

Former Cabinet chiefs Aníbal Fernández and Jorge Capitanich, and Argentine Football Association (AFA) leaders, including the organisation’s expresident Luis Segura, stand accused of defrauding the state through the mismanagement of state funding for the Fútbol

para todos (“Football for All”) television programme, which was broadcast on state broadcaster TV Pública.

The trial comes after Federal Judge María Servini de Cubría concluded her investigation into the matter.

“The essence of this crime is the willful damage to another’s property, caused from a legal position of power,” the judge said in her ruling.

According to Servini, the contracts signed within the framework of Fútbol Para Todos made possible “the deviation of four million pesos (US$108,000 at the current exchange rate) to AFA,” generating “a loss for the national state.”

The judge acquitted former Cabinet chief Juan Manuel Abal Medina during her probe.

The late ex-AFA president and FIFA vice-president Julio Grondona – who was linked with a string of corruption allegations dating back to his time overseeing football, before his death in 2014 – was not cited in the case.

Thirteen individuals in total will stand trial, including former Argentine Football Union boss Sergio Marchi and former AFA’s chief financier Rubén Raposo.

The court will review eviden- ce including bounced cheques and book-keeping records, which prosecutors say proves former government officials were involved in the mismanagement of state funds.

The trial is the latest in a series of court cases against former Kirchnerite government officials. One of the most scandalous – the so-called ‘notebooks corruption case’, is the sixth probe centred on Fernández de Kirchner and her former officials and associates.

Fútbol para todos was launched in 2009 by Fernández de Kirchner, whose government paid 600 million pesos for the rights to broadcast matches from the Primera División. AFA broke its existing contract with Televisión Satélite Codificada, a company co-owned by Grupo Clarín and Torneos y Competencias, in order to enter into the deal.

President Mauricio Macri originally promised to elimate the scheme upon taking office in 2015. However, Fútbol para

todos was eventually phased out slowly, ending in mid-2017. According to a report by the

La Nación newspaper last year, the government spent 10.178 billion pesos on the transmission of games through the pro- gramme between 2009 and 2017.

Today, the broadcasting of games has returned to private hands, with the majority of local matches seen only via cable or pay-per-view.