Argentina’s football clubs have long been run as nonprofit civil associations, giving members the right to vote for who they want to run their local team. This time-honored model sparks passionate and occasionally litigious disputes. But all that could soon change if President Javier Milei’s mega-decree remains in effect. 

A change in legislation included in the decree will let sports clubs become private sports corporations, or SADs, as they are known in Spanish. This model was previously banned, because under Argentine law, only nonprofit civil associations were allowed to arrange physical activities like football matches. 

Private corporations will now be allowed to conduct the same activities as civil associations. The decree also makes it illegal to discriminate against a sports club based on its legal structure, meaning that private companies and civil associations could compete side by side. But most professional football clubs reject the model, and including SADs would violate the statutes of some of the biggest organizations in Argentine football. The legal wrangle has left sports clubs and fans alike asking what happens next.

The Argentine Football Association (AFA) doesn’t allow its member clubs to be private corporations; its statutes say they can only be non-profit civil associations. But the decree would make this ban illegal. Many Argentine clubs would also have to change their bylaws to switch to the private model.

‘The club belongs to its members’

For a club to become a SAD, its members have to vote for the change with a three-quarters supermajority. But most clubs and fans have rejected the idea so far. The motto el club es de los socios (the club belongs to its members) has been the battle cry against SADs since the issue first entered the public scene. 

The push to allow private sports corporations is a long-time project of former president and Milei ally Mauricio Macri, who presented a legal bill on the matter as president of Boca Juniors in 2001. He tried to push the change again during his presidency, although he was unsuccessful again.

When Milei raised the issue during the 2023 presidential campaign, most clubs came out against the idea. In an AFA vote, a resounding majority of members rejected the change to its statutes.

The issue affects all sports, although debate has focused on football clubs so far. Milei used a kind of presidential decree known as a “decree of necessity and urgency,” intended for use only in circumstances that are so urgent that there is no time for them to pass through Congress.

When Security Minister and self-proclaimed Independiente fan Patricia Bullrich said she was sad that English football giant Chelsea had not included the club in a list of rumored potential acquisitions, the bluntest response came from club president and Lanús mayor Néstor Grindetti, a political ally.

“If any club and its members want to become a SAD, they should do it,” he told sports publication Olé. Non-profit civil association clubs cannot be bought or sold — for this to happen, they need to become private companies. “Here at Independiente, it is banned by our bylaws. My dream would be for Independiente to buy Chelsea, I’m not sad in any way that they aren’t buying us.”

The decree gives sporting federations one year to make the necessary changes to their statutes so that SADs can compete. 

FIFA sanctions?

AFA is unlikely to budge: during its year-end celebrations, President Claudio Tapia made thinly veiled comments on the matter, declaring that “whatever comes, it will find us defending the institutions we cherish and believe in.”

But the decree, in legal terms, is equivalent to a national law, and trumps the bylaws of a specific organization. Should AFA reject the idea of making the necessary changes and allowing SADs to compete, the issue will go to court.

FIFA, football’s world governing body, has no regulations on the matter — but it rejects any government intervention in its member federations. The organization recently warned the Brazilian Football Confederation that the men’s team could miss the next World Cup as a punishment after Río court ousted the Confederation’s president over electoral irregularities. The AFA could face similar sanctions if the current reforms go ahead.

To some in Argentine football, the decree should never have mentioned football clubs in the first place. Banfield president Eduardo Spinosa spoke out against it, lambasting the change on social media: “Considering all the problems our country faces, I wonder what the urgency was and how it helps the government for clubs to become private corporations, since they don’t pay them a single peso, nor subsidize them in any way.”