The Argentine Football Association (AFA) appears to have been the target of a cyber attack after emails were sent from its official accounts reportedly criticising the “corrupt refereeing” of Argentina’s controversial World Cup last-16 win over Egypt.
Egypt, who were leading 2-0 in the closing stages of the game, had a goal controversially ruled out and were angry over a perceived foul in the build-up to Enzo Fernandez’s winning strike.
The Egyptian FA lodged an official complaint to Fifa demanding the removal of referee Francois Letexier and his officiating team from the tournament, to which Fifa’s Chief Refereeing Officer Pierluigi Collina responded by asserting that “nobody can question the integrity” of the officiating at the World Cup.
Fans have been in uproar about perceived refereeing favouritism towards the holders, further stoked after a fully-Argentinian refereeing crew was appointed for top contenders France’s quarter-final against Morocco.
And now, Argentine news outlet Le Calle has reported that emails from the AFA were sent to journalists in the match’s aftermath, which stated that “Argentina did not win” and that “corrupt refereeing decisions” influenced the result. The messages also praised Egypt’s performance and made threatening statements related to the conflict in the Middle East.
The report goes on to cite sources within the AFA who indicated that the hackers were of Egyptian origin who breached the federation’s database, obtaining email addresses, passwords and IP addresses.
Responding to the incident, an AFA statement read: “We would like to inform you that we have detected the possible sending of emails from one of our institutional accounts that were not generated or authorised by our team.
“Given this situation, and while we carry out the corresponding verifications together with the systems team, we ask that you disregard any message you have recently received from our account that seems unusual, especially if it contains links, attachments or requests personal information.
“There is a possibility that our account has been subject to unauthorised access, so we are working to clarify what happened and take the necessary security measures.
“Our systems have the appropriate security and safeguards in place. The incident is being analysed to determine its origin and scope.”
The emails echo the anger of Mostafa Ziko, who had his goal ruled out against Argentina before going on to score their second anyway. He went as far as saying that “this tournament has been fixed” and that the Letexier “was really not fair” following Egypt’s exit from the tournament.
Egypt’s manager, Hossam Hassan, added that “there seems to have been pressure on the Argentinian side on the referee that has brought about this outcome”.
Meanwhile, Fifa have again been accused of taking action that is purposefully favourable of Argentina after extending England defender Jarell Quansah’s red card suspension to two matches, deeming him in breach of serious foul play for his sending off against Mexico.
That means he will miss both England’s quarter-final clash with Norway as well as a potential semi-final, which will be against Argentina if they beat Switzerland on Sunday.
