AFA Chief Claudio Tapia Unleashes Fury Over Shocking World Cup Final Conspiracy Claims Against Argentina

A month after Argentina fell 1-0 to Spain in overtime at the 2026 World Cup final, Argentine Football Association (AFA) president Claudio Tapia broke his silence with a lengthy, pointed statement on social media, taking direct aim at what he called a “miserable campaign” to paint the national team as having thrown the match.

The backlash stems from a wave of conspiracy theories that spread in Argentina in the weeks following the loss, some of them tied to a leaked video showing Lionel Messi delivering an unusually calm pre-match speech in the locker room, in which he told his teammates to “forget about everything”.

That clip was seized on by some to suggest the players had mentally checked out before kickoff, and it wasn’t long before speculation grew into open accusations, with some in Argentina even floating the idea that the squad had deliberately “given away” the final.

Tapia didn’t hold back in responding to those claims, noting that a month had passed without a single apology from anyone who spread the theories. “None of them apologized. None of them came out and said, ‘We were wrong’,” he wrote, adding that while making a mistake is human, lying and fueling a false narrative for days before quietly disappearing once it’s debunked is not.