The head of Argentina’s Sports Undersecretariat, Julio Garro, has said that Lionel Messi, as Argentina captain, should apologize for the racist chants sung by the men’s national football team after Sunday’s Copa América victory against Colombia.
“I think [Messi] should come out and offer the appropriate apologies, as should the Argentine Football Federation president [Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia],” Garro told radio station Urbana Play on Wednesday. He said the incident “leaves Argentina looking bad as a country” and that it would be good to “make an example out of this.”
On Tuesday, a clip went viral of Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernández’s live stream of the team’s bus celebrations following their 2024 Copa América win. Fernández and other players can be heard singing a chant which mocks French players for their African heritage.
The French Football Federation (FFF) announced it would sue its Argentine counterpart after the video went viral.
Fernández later apologized via Instagram, admitting there’s “no excuse for these words” and that he stands “against discrimination in all forms.”
The English Premier League’s Chelsea FC, where the midfielder plays, released a statement confirming it would launch an internal disciplinary procedure against Fernández, adding that they “appreciated” the player’s public apology and would use the incident as an “opportunity to educate.”
In February, Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni confirmed the government’s plan to shut down the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI, by its Spanish acronym), calling it one of “several institutes that are good for nothing” which serve “just as a political piggy bank or for creating jobs for political activists.” The institution has not yet been closed.
An Interior Ministry spokesperson said he understood Garro’s comments were personal, rather than institutional, in nature. The president’s office did not respond to a request for comment.