The AFA property was not called Lionel Andrés Messi and the team was not yet two-time champion of America and the world. We are in 2020 and Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia He has been “president of football” for three years. His office in Ezeiza provides the scenery for a meeting with leaders whom he has known since he started in Barracas Central, almost by chance. He looks them in the eyes. He listens to them. There is silence and he speaks to them, almost in a paternalistic tone: “Boys, we have to stop screwing around a little,” he orders them. His interlocutors remain silent. They expected any advice, except that. Suddenly, the voice of a historian breaks the silence: “Chiqui, we are your unconditional fans, but you can’t ask us for that. Donuting is the only thing we know how to do!”
Tapia is the guarantor of the thread, the subject in which many of the managers who posed with him this Thursday, in the now renowned property, obtained their doctorates and with the president re-elected until 2028although suspended due to the resolution of the General Inspection of Justice (IGJ). That certainty that “Chiqui” will not go against conventional methods is one of his weapons to stay in power; to break up the opposition. No current leader will want a reformist to appear, a revolutionary who seeks to change methods and forms; that aims to professionalize craftsmanship. Mariano Elizondo, former CEO of the Super League, tried to surpass the first division. Born in the heat of Mauricio Macri’s government, she was buried in Sergio Massa’s house in 2019, when the former presidential candidate of Unión Por la Patria was president of the Chamber of Deputies. “Elizondo doesn’t screw up,” was the explanation of some managers, always off the microphone, because for sensitive topics and statements they always ask for anonymity. Once the CEO fell, the president won, who was already Tapia, and who went on to annex the renamed Professional League under his tentacles. There was one manager left in the first division, Francisco Duarte, but no one moves a finger without consulting Chiqui.
The leading Tapia is a mere product of chance. A lubrication center in Barracas, two blocks from the Sweepers union, is to the president of the AFA what the Sarandí hardware store was to Julio Humberto Grondona. There, almost by chance in the first years of the century, the man from San Juan met Guapo fans who saw how their team flirted with relegation from the first D; with disaffiliation. He told it in first person in an interview with Enganche: “It always happened and, knowing me from the club, they asked me to help. Barracas was about to disappear. They wanted him to be president. I didn’t believe them, because at that point I wasn’t a member either. But they explained to me that the statute allowed it. They convinced me to show up, with the team one place away from relegation. I won, we were saved and that’s where it all started.”
And the lubricenter mutated into the red and white field, the colors of Guapo. And promotion after promotion, Tapia gained space among the leaders, thanks to its compositional character and to listen to them all, all the time. Having Hugo Moyano as a son-in-law opened doors for him, of course. Tapia was a union representative for the garbage collection branch of the Truckers Union when he met Paola Moyanoone of the union boss’s daughters with whom he had two children and toured the world. Once he made his match, he joined the clan and rose to the position of Organization Secretary of the guild. But a fight with Pablo Moyanowith whom he has no relationship today despite having obtained preferential entry for one of his sons for the grand final with France, pushed him to leave the union.
This is how he ended up, with the help of Hugo and Diego Santilli, in the Metropolitan Area Ecological Coordination of the State (play)the largest controlled landfill in Buenos Aires. Today he still holds the vice presidency of that entity, a position designated by the City of Buenos Aires. Ceamse has 1000 employees and has its own union. Its representative is Jorge Mancini, a man from Moyano who was a provincial deputy for Cambiemos and who is an ally of Tapia. In 2015, Macri recognized their support and revalidated the businesses for garbage collection when he received them together with Santilli in his first meeting with union members as president-elect.
Tapia climbed the football pyramid. After 38-38 in 2015, an election that ended with Argentine football intervened by FIFA, In March 2017 he got the chance to top the unique list. And access Julio Humberto Grondona’s chair for the first time. His first decision speaks volumes about his genes as the top leader of Argentine football: appeal the four-match ban that FIFA had imposed on Lionel Messi, the captain, for insulting an assistant referee during a South American qualifying match with Chile played at the Monumental stadium. On May 5, 2017, and when Tapia had barely been in charge of the AFA for just under 45 days, the FIFA appeals committee announced that it accepted the “exemplary appeal” presented by Argentina. And Messi was enabled.
“Tapia always knew that if the national team worked, football would work. He internalized it long before he became a leader,” says someone who has followed him closely for years. And he adds: “The national team was what was distinctive, with Grondona the thing of being a fan of the national team had been lost.” With words and actions, Tapia revalued the national team, which in 2018 lost its coach – Jorge Sampaoli – after a grotesque role in the Russian World Cup. The Ezeiza property went from being just another training ground to a “futuristic place” with impeccable grass fields and five-star hotels. The AFA invested tens of millions of dollars during the Tapia administration. “Chiqui is the driver of the team. Instead of taking the leaders, family members of the players travel. Tapia knows the soccer players’ nephews and godchildren by name,” provides a leader of his kidney. It’s called closeness. And the historic footballers of the national team value it, especially because when the AFA had its accounts in very red and the regularization commission was looming, Tapia himself did not stop accompanying the team. He was the only leader who was involved in the 2016 Copa América, at the worst moment. Chiqui does not spare time to build power. Between mate and mate, he listened to Messi, Ángel Di María and Nicolás Otamendi. Angry then, world champions today; always loyal.
Along with Messi there is another Lionel who influenced – and how – the all-powerful Tapia of today. It was a decision; a choice for selection. “Tapia had been surprised by Lionel Scaloni in the L’Alcudia tournament. He realized that he was different.”recalls another leader close to the re-elected president. After the failure in Russia and the dismissal of Sampaoli, Tapia took a plane to Messi’s adopted city, Barcelona. In a hotel in the Catalan capital he shook Scaloni’s hand and anointed him as the new coach of the national team. It was December 2018. But it was also the founding stone of Argentina, two-time American champion and world champion; the first brick of eternal Tapia.
“That bet led to a procession: five million Argentines poured into the streets to celebrate the World Cup in Qatar. There is a Tapia on the street different from the one in the media. People ask for photos all the time and at all hours. Like a rockstar? No, like someone close. “In general, those who go to the stands and not to the audience want it.”they analyze near him, with admiration. The truth is that in recent times, and especially in the promotion, some fans insult him. They do not forgive refereeing damages to their teams. Nor the way in which the tournaments are organized, which from 2025 would have 70 teams in the two main categories. A unique phenomenon.
The Tapia of 2017 was a careerist of power. He arrived “without building tapismo” in the first division, and leveraged by his usual sides. Theirs was the triumph of “poor and relegated soccer from the interior.” The fateful 38 to 38 of 2015 had left him with an angry grimace. He perceived himself as a winner, as he recalled at the assembly this Thursday. FIFA came and introduced a regularization committee that, in agreement with the then president Mauricio Macri, was chaired by Armando Pérez. Tapia appointed who would become his chancellor from that moment on: Pablo Toviggino. He made him treasurer. He gave him the box, which he handles to this day.
In the March 2017 elections, Tapia took office without opposition and thanks, in part, to his ties with Daniel Angelici and the Macrism not of Macri but of Santilli. By force, the PRO accepted him to govern football. The first division was convinced that he was the chosen one and succeeded Grondona. In 2019 he made it clear that the national team was like a daughter: He asked Toviggino for a very harsh letter to protest the VAR in the Copa América in Brazil, a tournament in which even Messi was sanctioned for his statements. Tapia was punished with ostracism: Conmebol – that is, Alejandro Domínguez – expelled him from FIFAwhere he occupied a seat on the council, with travel expenses and salary in euros.
The Copa América in Brazil 2021, which Argentina beat the local in that cathedral called Maracaná, it changed forever the view that many had of Tapia. If the national team was his creature, the success of the Albiceleste team would also be Tapia’s triumph. Then came the Finalissima and, later, Qatar 2022. Domínguez then understood that he had to leave the quarrels behind and welcome the new Tapia. Al Tapia empowered and successful; to the champion Tapia.
In the Tapia 2017-2024 there is also, an internal process. Personal and sentimental changes; aesthetic and emotional. He is no longer a trade unionist, but the president of the world champion football association. Something similar happens with his appearance, much more careful than when he presided over the board meetings of some promotion category. He took classes to improve his oratory and they wiped his neck in the middle of the last Copa América, as if he were a deity. At Thursday’s assembly he gave his most forceful speech since he presided over the AFA. He spoke to President Milei – whom he has been fighting even since the 2023 electoral campaign – and to the – few, very few – opponents he has in the association. He didn’t name them. At the end of his speech, already re-elected until 2028, he reminded the Government that “football is culture.” A remote control to those “studying” eliminating the special regime of employer and social contributions for clubs, governed by decree 1212/03.
Near the “commander” they speak convinced. “Today, Chiqui is the most important politician in Argentina along with President Milei.” They deny that he has aspirations to be a deputy, senator or provincial governor. At least, for now. This Friday, and at the initiative of the Buenos Aires representative Maia Daer (Unión por la Patria), Tapia was honored by the Buenos Aires Legislature. “For his work in leading Argentine football and management successes such as winning the Copa América 2021, Finalissima 2022, World Cup 2022 and Copa América 2024,” the official invitation said. The Tapia leader who was born in a lubricentro did not imagine the places of power that he would conquer.
