Argentine football club San Lorenzo has asked former player and current board member Néstor Ortigoza to resign after videos of him assaulting and threatening his wife were spread online.

In one of the videos, Ortigoza is being recorded with a phone and appears to knock it out of the hands of the person who is recording. In another, he is being recorded as he kicks a ball around with a child. A woman — apparently his partner — can be heard repeatedly telling him “be quiet because the kid’s here,” as if to end an argument. He responds by kicking the ball into the camera. 

In the third, taken from security cameras in the couple’s kitchen, his partner is recording him with a phone. He is seen striking her, knocking her to the floor, as a child looks on.

The Herald could not confirm how the videos, which we are not reproducing out of respect for a victim of gender-based violence, were leaked online.

“In light of the facts of public knowledge linking [Ortigoza] to gender-based violence, […] San Lorenzo’s Board of Directors has decided to demand that member Néstor Ezequiel Ortigoza resign his position, since his actions do not represent the values for which our institution stands,” read the statement published by San Lorenzo on Thursday.

The club goes on to add it looks to follow both national and international law and cooperate with the investigation of the case, as well as its own gender-based violence protocols.

The former player and his wife are involved in a legal battle: he filed a complaint against her alleging that she was violent towards his children, while she is accusing him of gender-based violence. In August, the police raided the house Ortigoza shared with his wife before their separation, finding two guns and ammunition. 

The 39-year-old former player earned a San Lorenzo board seat in December 2023, when club members voted for him as part of club President Marcelo Moretti’s list. Ortigoza was also the club’s sporting director, in charge of the professional football department. He was fired in August after irregularities with the signing of winger Matías Reali led to his former club Independiente Rivadavia filing a complaint against Moretti for fraud.

Ortigoza became a San Lorenzo icon in 2014, when he became a key player in the club’s first-ever Copa Libertadores win, scoring the deciding goal in the final. Having also represented the likes of Argentinos Juniors, Rosario Central and Paraguayan giants Olimpia, he had three separate stints with El Ciclón, where he retired in 2022.

Originally from Merlo in Buenos Aires Province, Ortigoza also holds Paraguayan nationality through his father. He represented the Albirroja at the 2010 World Cup and the 2011 and 2015 Copa Américas.