Mariano Dalesio is one of several hundred thousand members of River Plate, a top Argentine soccer club. Having been proudly registered by his father at birth, the 29-year-old pays a monthly fee to go to local games, always sporting the same jersey and pants to bring him luck, and votes to elect the club’s leaders. He considers the stadium in Buenos Aires his second home. “It’s a very important part of my life,” he said. “Actually, it is my life.”
But the young fan worries about whether the libertarian vision of Argentine President Javier Milei may disrupt soccer as he knows it.
The country’s several thousand soccer clubs, which have birthed legends such as Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona, have long operated as nonprofit associations run by their members. However, as Milei tackles Argentina’s long-winded economic crisis, he is seeking to encourage private investment in the sport and sees it as an untapped source of revenue. Since the early days of his presidency, he has pushed for clubs to have the freedom to become for-profit companies under private owners, insisting they’ll make quick money. “No more poor socialism in soccer,” he declared in July on X.
In August, Milei issued a decree that would give the Argentine Football Association (AFA) a year to adjust its statutes and permit for-profit clubs to join. One of the first interested investors has been Foster Gillett, the son of former Liverpool co-owner George Gillett, who recently traveled to Argentina and met with government officials and several clubs in the country’s top soccer league, according to Juliana Santillán, an Argentine congresswoman.
Fans of Boca Juniors cheer during the Argentine Professional League Cup match between Boca Juniors and Godoy Cruz at La Bombonera stadium in Buenos Aires on April 16. Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images
But so far, Milei’s actions have been met with strong opposition. Many of the clubs in the AFA have loudly rejected handing their reins over to new owners. Under the current model, their income, which comes from membership dues, ticket sales, player transfers, and television rights, must be reinvested into the club. Some worry that new owners will care more about making money than the social mission of the clubs, which often serve as community centers that keep children out of trouble and offer recreational sports that may not be as lucrative as professional soccer.
Dalesio, who occasionally attends River Plate membership assemblies, recalled how he once spoke about the need for more transparency on a project to remodel the stadium. “Here, the members have a lot of voice. The for-profit model will make that disappear,” he said.
Left: Argentine forward Guillermo Stábile gets ready to kick the ball during a match in December 1933. Center: Argentine goalkeeper Miguel Ángel Rugilo and two teammates block a shot from England’s Harold Hassall (right) during a game in 1951. Right: Argentina’s Lionel Messi shows his signature dribbling skills as he slips past a defender during an international friendly match in Harrison, New Jersey, on Sept. 27, 2022. AFP/Getty Images
Soccer was first introduced to Argentina by British immigrants in the 19th century, with one of the earliest recorded matches played in 1867 in Buenos Aires. Over the decades, clubs continued to form as the city grew and even helped create neighborhood identities. By the early 1900s, the game had become the national pastime and “had long since ceased to be the preserve of British expats,” wrote British sports journalist Jonathan Wilson in his book Angels With Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina.
As a result, Argentines developed their own style focused on dribbling skills. They claimed their technique was better—more spontaneous and passionate even—than the British, thus fueling a sense of nationalism that has now come to be commonly associated with the game.
The early 1900s also saw the formation of some of the country’s biggest soccer clubs: River Plate, Boca Juniors, Racing, Independiente, and San Lorenzo. Clubs swiftly became places “to socialize, to get together, to understand each other, to form communities,” said Cesar Torres, a sports historian at SUNY Brockport. “They didn’t have the idea of making money.” Nonetheless, the sport quickly became entangled in politics.
The government of populist President Juan Perón, who first served in the 1940s and 1950s, underwrote stadium construction projects and in return, according to Wilson, had his representatives work closely with the clubs’ leadership. Perón wanted to make sure he had the clubs’ support, recognizing the fervor they generated and their potential to organize politically. Soccer also kept Argentines entertained and, to some degree, distracted.
Years later, the military junta, which had overthrown the Argentine government and murdered or disappeared thousands of people, used the 1978 World Cup—hosted and won by Argentina—to revamp its global image and project calm and control. One stadium was just minutes away from a notorious clandestine detention center in Buenos Aires.
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Fans poke their heads out of the door and window of a bus, waving Argentina flags and celebrating. - Argentina fans celebrate in the street after Argentina beat the Netherlands in the World Cup final in Buenos Aires on June 25, 1978.
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A huge crowd of fans is seen in a stadium waving dozens of Argentina flags. - Argentina fans fill the stands during the World Cup match between Argentina and Brazil at Gigante de Arroyito Stadium in Rosario, Argentina, on June 18, 1978. Michel Piquemal photos/Icon Sport via Getty Images
More recently, in 2009, then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s administration offered Argentines free soccer television programing, but critics called the move a ploy to spread government propaganda with political ads.
In the last decade, clubs have slogged through economic crises as governments have struggled to repay billions of dollars in debts to the International Monetary Fund and overspending has resulted in soaring inflation. Though Milei’s severe austerity measures have slowed monthly inflation to 4 percent, cuts to subsidies have left many families struggling to get by.
Rodolfo Paverini, the president of the Argentine Sports Confederation, said clubs have lost membership dues and been hampered by high increases in electricity and gas bills. “In all governments, there was a tendency to protect clubs,” he said. “Today, they are totally in God’s hands.”
Despite the success of its national team, the champions of this summer’s Copa América tournament and the 2022 World Cup, Argentina has found it hard to compete with other markets, notably Brazil, the most comparable market in Latin America due to the country’s size and soccer culture.
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The strong Brazilian economy has meant that its clubs have significantly more resources and can sign the most promising young players from the region, including Argentina, said Fernando Roitman, an expert in sports governance at the Switzerland-based International Centre for Sports Studies (CIES).
Argentina has the third-highest number of professional players overseas, after Brazil and France, according to a 2023 report by CIES. Among them are almost all the members of its national team, from Messi at Inter Miami to midfielder Alexis Mac Allister at Liverpool. While several of Argentina’s largest clubs are seen as financially stable, others have accumulated heaping amounts of debt while unable to pay their players.
Milei, who played as a goalkeeper for a lower-ranking division of San Lorenzo in the 1980s, has made it his mission to change the clubs’ finances, an unconventional economic passion project. Last December, mere days into his term, Milei issued a sweeping mandate to deregulate the economy that included measures to allow for-profit clubs to join the AFA, getting around the association’s current prohibition. Those measures, as well as Milei’s August decree, have since been knocked down by the courts. However, the government can still appeal the legal decision.
Javier Milei holds up a World Cup trophy replica during a campaign rally in Buenos Aires on Oct. 16, 2023. Matias Baglietto/NurPhoto
Government officials, including Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona, have argued that they’re merely fighting to give clubs the freedom to choose what they want to be. “As the government, we have the mandate to free Argentines,” Libarona said in July. “Soccer is no exception.”
Santillán, the congresswoman, said Foster, the investor who visited Argentina, presented several clubs with proposals that their members are expected to vote on. The idea, she said, is to approach fans “in a smart way so they don’t feel Foster is an investor who comes to buy but an investor who comes to share.”
The moves fall in line with Milei’s broader free market approach. He has sought to appeal to domestic and foreign investors (including courting billionaire Elon Musk). “He favors unfettered capitalism, the commercialization of basically every aspect of social life, so he sees that this [soccer] is an opportunity for free enterprise as well,” said Torres, the sports historian.
Some do support Milei’s crusade. Retired Argentine star player Sergio Agüero has said private ownership could strengthen clubs but that “if the members say no, it’s no.” In Rosario, which is located a few hours northwest of the capital and is also Messi’s hometown, several members of Newell’s Old Boys, a local soccer club, favor turning the protégé’s old club into a for-profit company.
Alejo Navarro, a university student, complained that the club hadn’t won a national championship since 2013. He voted for Milei, a person who he said “disrupts everything in politics, for better or for worse,” and would be in favor of Newell’s becoming for-profit.
Thaciano of Bahia celebrates with teammates after scoring the first goal for his team during a match between Vasco da Gama and Bahia at São Januário stadium in Rio de Janeiro on May 1, 2023. Buda Mendes/Getty Images
Milei isn’t operating in a vacuum. In recent years, the for-profit model for sports clubs has trended across Latin America. In 2021, Brazil passed legislation to encourage the creation of for-profit clubs. The move wasn’t as contentious as the ongoing debate in Argentina.
As a result, according to Cesar Grafietti, a financial consultant for Brazilian soccer clubs, several prominent clubs are now in better shape. For example, in 2023, City Football Group (CFG), the parent company of English football club Manchester City, completed its acquisition of Brazilian club Bahia, investing substantially in new players. But there have also been legal problems—such as with the takeover of top club Vasco da Gama—and fewer investors than expected, Grafietti added. Argentina’s neighbor Uruguay also permits for-profit clubs. In 2017, CFG acquired Club Atlético Torque, which was later renamed to Montevideo City Torque, a nod to its new ownership.
Fans of River Plate cheer for their team prior to a Professional League Cup match between River Plate and Vélez Sarsfield in Buenos Aires on Feb. 4. Marcelo Endelli/Getty Images
It’s unclear what the economic impact of private investment in soccer clubs might look like for Argentina. However, many experts agree that better management is more important than the club model itself and that the problem of Argentine players going overseas has more to do with the country’s less developed economy more generally—something that cannot necessarily be fixed by pumping dollars into clubs. “The model doesn’t guarantee success and neither does it protect you from an eventual failure,” said Ariel Reck, a sports attorney based in Buenos Aires. “There is no magic.”
Smaller clubs with fewer members may be more likely to make the switch to private ownership. However, several factors may spook investors first. There’s the economic crisis: Argentina has a CC credit rating from Fitch, which predicts that the country will likely default on its debt in the coming years. There are also the barras bravas, or fan-run soccer gangs known for mob violence and for running ticket and parking rackets. And then there is the biggest obstacle for now: The AFA still excludes for-profit clubs.
“They’re clubs with a lot of history, and I don’t think the members, the fans, would allow it at all,” said Tato Aguilera, an Argentine sports journalist. “There’s a lot of love for the institution.”