President Armando Pérez | Website www.afa.org.ar | |
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Founded 21 February 1893; 124 years ago (1893-02-21) FIFA affiliation 1912; 105 years ago (1912) CONMEBOL affiliation 1916; 101 years ago (1916) | ||
The Argentine Football Association (Spanish: Asociación del Fútbol Argentino, [asosjaˈsjon del ˈfutbol arxenˈtino]) is the governing body of football in Argentina. It organises the Primera División and lower divisions (from Primera B Nacional to Torneo Argentino C), the Argentine Cup, Supercopa Argentina and the Argentina national football team.
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The association is based in the city of Buenos Aires. Secondly, it also organizes the amateur leagues for women, children, youth, Futsal, and other local leagues, as well as the national women's team.
History
The Argentine Association Football League (in English) was founded on 21 February 1893 by Alexander Watson Hutton, considered "the father" of Argentine football. The Argentine Association is the oldest in South America and one of the oldest to be formed outside Europe. In 1906 Florencio Martínez de Hoz became the first Argentine-born President of the Association.
In 1912 the president of Gimnasia y Esgrima de Buenos Aires, Ricardo Aldao, broke up with the association establishing an own league, the Federación Argentina de Football which organized a parallel tournament. Some teams moved to the FAF were Gimnasia y Esgrima, Independiente, Estudiantes de La Plata and Atlanta. The league lasted until 1914 when rejoining Asociación Argentina de Football forming a unique league for the 1915 season.
The second dissident league was formed in 1919 and named Asociacion Amateurs de Football, organizing its own championships (as FAF had done) until 1926 when it merged to official association. The dissident league included some of the most prominent teams such as River Plate, Racing, Independiente and San Lorenzo, with the exception of Boca Juniors that remained in the official "Asociación Argentina de Football".
When both leagues merged for the 1927 season, the association was again renamed to "Asociación Amateur Argentina de Football" until the professionalization of the sport in 1931 when it switched to "Liga Argentina de Football". The first round of the recently created professional championship was on 31 May 1931.
Despite football turning professional in Argentina, some clubs wanted to remain amateur so they formed a new league, the "Asociación de Football Amateur y Profesionales", which organized a parallel tournament until 1934 when the dissident association merged with LAF on 3 November 1934 to form the "Asociación del Football Argentino" which has remained since.
In 2015, during the presidential elections to elect a new president for the body, there were two candidates to occupate Julio Humberto Grondona's chair, Marcelo Tinelli –who wanted a change in how things were going, like eliminating corruption between some clubs and the AFA– and Luis Segura, who had taken charge after Grondona's death, with the intention of extending his mandate.
With 75 presidents of different Argentine clubs voting, the day of the elections something went wrong when the final count resulted in a draw of 38 to 38 (76 votes in total). The explanation given was that one of the electors put a double vote and that mistake was not reported. As a result, the executive committee decided to postpone the election.
After some meetings to put an end to the conflict, both candidates agreed to have another election in June 2016.
In June 2016, AFA president Luis Segura was charged with "aggravated administrative fraud". Segura has been replaced on an interim basis by the AFA's executive secretary, Damián Dupiellet.
Names
The body has been renamed several times since its establishment in 1893, in most of cases translating into Spanish the original British names. The list of names is the following:
Official association
The list of official competitions organized by the Argentine Football Association since its creation in 1893 are:
Dissident associations
The following table include competitions organized by dissident associations.