Following a chaotic and highly contested Round of 16 clash, the Argentine Football Association (AFA) has said that it fell victim to a targeted email hack.
The alleged Email hack was triggered by Argentina’s thrilling, come-from-behind 3-2 victory over Egypt on July 8.
Trailing 2-0 early on, the defending champions rallied back with goals from Cristian Romero, Lionel Messi, and an Enzo Fernández stoppage-time winner to secure a spot in the quarterfinals.
However, the match was marred by refereeing controversies. Egypt’s head coach, Hossam Hassan, publicly accused French referee François Letexier of bias, implying that FIFA and officials pressured the game’s outcome to keep Lionel Messi and Argentina in the tournament.
Hours after the final whistle, the on-field tension spilled directly into cyberspace. Accredited journalists and international media outlets began receiving bizarre mass emails sent directly from official, institutional AFA domains.
The unauthorized emails claimed “Argentina did not win” and alleged the match was decided by “corrupt refereeing decisions,” while heavily praising the Egyptian team’s performance.
Responding to the alleged Email hack, a statement by the Argentine FA reads: “We want 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.”
It asked the public to “dismiss any message that you have recently received from our account and that is 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 adopt the necessary security measures,” the AFA added.
Egypt had taken a 2-0 lead in Atlanta through Yasser Ibrahim and Mostafa Zico.
But Cristian Romero halved the deficit 11 minutes from time before Lionel Messi equalised five minutes later.
Enzo Fernandez completed the comeback two minutes into injury time as Argentina set up a last-eight tie against Switzerland on Sunday.
Speaking after the defeat, Egypt boss Hossam Hassan said his side had been “treated unfairly” and “suffered injustice”.
Hassan added: “Perhaps they wanted to keep the world champion in the competition. Perhaps they wanted Messi to stay in the running.
“The world champion received support at every level. There seem to be pressures from the Argentina side on this outcome.”
