The trial for embezzlement of Football for All funds began: keys and those involved

The case involves two former Chiefs of Staff – Aníbal Fernández and Capitanich – and former AFA leaders, with Segura at the head, among others. What can happen?

Between August 2009 and December 2015 The State allocated, according to a report from the General Auditor’s Office, 8.5 billion pesos to finance the Football for All program., which at that time allowed First Division matches to be watched for free on Public TV. At that time, it was promoted that the measure would bring about the cleanup of the institutions’ liabilities, that it would generate so much income that part of it would go to strengthen Olympic sport and all with the possibility of not having to pay any fee to watch the matches. But the result ended up being ruinous for the State, the clubs increased their liabilities and in the middle there was a festival of checkswhich measured in dollars reached 1,184 million at that time, which were discounted in finance by the same leaders who had to ensure that all income reached the clubs’ coffers.

For all this, in 2014, a judicial investigation was initiated that ten years later reached an oral trial: this Monday, in the Amia courtroom in Comodoro Py, the process that began has two former chiefs of staff, Aníbal Fernández and Jorge Capitanich, sitting on the dockto Gabriel Mariotto, first person in charge of the program on the part of the State, to several leaders of the AFA at that time with Luis Segura at the head, also from the Argentine Football Association Associations, among them its general secretary, Sergio Marchi, and the representatives of two financial companies where the clubs discounted checks, Amigal and Climafin. And the Oral Court will be one made up of judges Ricardo Basilico, José Michilini and Adrián Grünberg who will decide if the accusation of prosecutor Miguel Osorio is concrete and condemns him for the shady handling of that money or if there is not enough evidence and they dismiss everyone.

At that time, the AFA had broken the contract that united it to the Codified Satellite Television company and signed one with the Government by which it transferred to the State the commercialization of television rights for an initial amount of 600 million pesos that was later increasing with the passage of time. For the prosecution, there were two crimes: from the officials a fraud on the State for not meeting the objectives set and on behalf of the football leadershipl fraudulent administration of that money to the detriment of their clubs and with the complicity of the financial companies. Because? Because the AFA received a direct transfer to its bank account of all the money, but instead of transferring what it was entitled to from there, it wrote and issued checks on deferred dates of up to four months and splitting the amounts, which It meant that each institution had to go to a financial institution to discount those documents to get the fresh money. This maneuver came before football was nationalized, but it found new players since the government came into force. Until 2009, the promissory notes issued by Codified Satellite Television were mostly exchanged at Alhec Group, Carlos Rivera’s financial institution where many saw the shadow of Julio Humberto Grondona himself. From the FPT, the papers were mostly changed to other suspected financial companies that, according to the investigation carried out by the first instance court of María Servini de Cubría, had rediscount rates well above the market rates and from there came a return for government officials and another for the football leadership.

Of course, the accusation has a weak point. By then, this journalist had followed the route of countless checks and many strange cooperatives and financial institutions appeared, but finally Justice only charged two, Amigal and Climafin, due to the volume of operations and because they had managers linked to football.In the case of the first, a member of the Huracán board of directors, named Jorge Galitis, and in the second, the president of Tiro Federal, Carlos Dávola. But there were other entities linked to directors such as Osvaldo Di Meglio of San Lorenzo (Maffra financial company), or Luis Spahn of Unión de Santa Fe, who were dismissed. So if that were the condition for going to trial, the situation of the financiers would be relieved. Especially in the case of those who already worked with the clubs deducting checks prior to Football for All, which is what the financial company Amigal maintains with evidence, whose owners were very close to the former president of Boca Juniors, Daniel Angelici.

On the side of The Chiefs of Staff always argued that they did not participate in any crime and as proof they presented that all transfers from the State to the AFA were made in a timely manner. And if the program was ultimately unsuccessful, it was not due to state fraud but to poor management of advertising sales, something that could be at most negligence but never a crime. In the case of the Agremiados leadership, what is charged to them is that they multiplied their assets exponentially thanks to a private agreement with AFA where they received 2 percent of the FPT money, something that was not contemplated in the original contract that established that all the money should go to the clubs. And in the referral to trial, Servini de Cubría assured that with that money they made superfluous and personal expenses, which will have to be seen if it can be proven. For this last reason, too, The AFA leaders with Segura at the head are accused, especially for the issue of not transferring the money to club accounts but splitting them into checks to force them to go to digitalized financial institutions. (something that the club treasurers denied in the Instruction stage) and then distribute the discount percentages. According to the directors, no one took any of those discounts and the methodology had been inaugurated by Julio Grondona to guarantee the collection of what he had advanced to the clubs on the one hand and on the other, to hold them hostage and have them vote for what he always wanted.

The trial began with the reading of the accusation and 200 witnesses will pass. One of them already declared, Ernesto Cherquis Bialo, who was spokesperson for the AFA at that time, and He assured that the case was set up by former President Mauricio Macri in order to intervene in the AFA, which happened months later.. The process will continue next Monday with the statements of the former Chiefs of Staff, Jorge Capitanich and Aníbal Fernández and in principle two more hearings are scheduled before the judicial recess for the winter holidays. It will be a long trial that is expected to be resolved only near the end of the year. And there we will know whether or not there was fraud with Football for All.