A proposed investment in one Argentine football club has become a battleground for libertarian President Javier Milei, as he pushes to open the beloved national sport to more private capital.
Estudiantes, a fast-rising team in Argentina’s top league, is preparing to hold a vote by some of its 56,000 members next month on whether to form a joint partnership with US businessman Foster Gillett, son of Liverpool FC’s former owner, in exchange for a $150mn investment.
That would make the team from La Plata, a city 55km south-east of the capital Buenos Aires, unique among Argentine football clubs, which are owned by their members and bar investors from taking a formal ownership stake, deterring foreign capital.
The government views Estudiantes as a “test case” for overhauling the system, said Guillermo Tofoni, a businessman who has worked closely with the government on its privatisation scheme and brought Gillett to Estudiantes.
“Through Estudiantes we are parting the red sea,” he said.
Argentina, a country where football is often a greater part of public life than religion, is one of the sport’s most successful nations. While its non-profit system is an oddity in world football, supporters argue it is essential to preserving the social role of clubs, which run community centres and even schools in many towns — services that for-profit companies may be tempted to cut.
But critics complain the model has stunted teams’ development, making even big clubs such as Boca Juniors and River Plate regular exporters of their brightest talents. Lionel Messi, one of the sport’s greatest ever players, left for Spanish club Barcelona aged 13 years old.
Brazil, which approved a law encouraging clubs to become limited companies in 2021, has recently attracted a wave of investment, with several top division clubs now foreign owned.
“We want to grow and Argentina’s football system is exhausted,” Estudiantes president Juan Verón, a former player for the club who also had stints at Manchester United, Chelsea and Inter Milan, told La Nación newspaper this month. He argued the income offered by television rights, sponsorships and player sales is too little to reinvest.
“We’re ready to do what is necessary so Estudiantes can keep getting bigger.”
The government is closing watching Estudiantes’ plan after setbacks in its efforts to reform football. Milei, who played in youth teams before training as an economist, issued an executive order days after taking office in late 2023 that gives sports clubs the option to become for-profit private groups.
A federal court temporarily swiftly suspended that order after Argentina’s Football Association (AFA) argued Milei could not force the governing body to accept private ownership.
“No matter how much they try to convince us, this isn’t our model of football,” AFA president Claudio Tapia, who has ties to the left-leaning Peronist opposition movement, said last August. Rightwing governments’ attempts to allow for-profit clubs failed in the 1990s and 2010s.
“We will defend what we have been defending for many years . . . and the result will be the same.”
At Estudiantes, Verón has proposed a midway option: the club, which owns players’ contracts and runs community facilities, will remain a non-profit civil association that can compete under AFA’s rules, while a new entity, co-owned by Gillett and the club, will manage professional football operations. The legal form of that entity is still under negotiation, said Estudiantes, stressing they wanted to create a “new model” rather than privatise the team.
Milei said about Verón this month: “I take my hat off to him because he’s proven himself a champion both on and off the field.”
Several surveys suggest a majority of Argentine football fans are against for-profit clubs. Yet many Estudiantes supporters, keen for success, were bullish about Verón’s plan as they attended their first game of the season last weekend. They won 3-1.
“The club is everything to me, and if this investor helps it grow then he’s very welcome,” said Federico Andrés Catrambones, 36.
Gillett signed a provisional agreement with Estudiantes in November pending the member vote, and the team has since purchased several sought-after players, including Cristián Medina, a 22-year-old midfielder from Boca Juniors. His roughly $15mn transfer was the most expensive deal between Argentine clubs.
With the legal framework for private football clubs suspended, Gillett’s planned investment is risky, Tofoni said.
Estudiantes could sell players without Gillett’s permission under AFA’s rules, for example, though this would violate the proposed contract between him and the club, Tofoni added.
“Foster is willing to assume risks others won’t because he believes in Argentina,” Tofoni said, adding that other investors in the US and Europe are waiting for clearer rules. “He will demonstrate that this is good for Argentine football.”
Life-long club fan Matías Antonio, 37, agreed. “If we manage to qualify for the Copa Libertadores [South America’s equivalent of Europe’s Champions League], other clubs will do exactly the same as us. Sooner or later it’s going to happen.”
But some fans said they were concerned the club had not published details of the deal, such as where the proceeds of player sales will go.
“There is a fear that if something goes wrong, we get screwed, like they did in Liverpool,” said Lautaro, a 22-year-old fan, referring to Gillett’s father George’s turbulent time as Liverpool owner from 2007 to 2010, when Foster Gillett served as director. Foster Gillett unsuccessfully tried to buy a majority stake in French club Lyon in 2022.
“But I trust Verón, so I choose to believe,” Lautaro added.
AFA treasurer Pablo Toviggino condemned Gillett and Verón’s agreement this month, writing on X: “All you’re doing is taking out a monstrous debt that you can only back with the heritage of the Estudiantes Civil Association.”
Daniel Vítolo, Argentina’s inspector-general who would oversee the implementation of the private sports clubs law, said the current structure meant “hidden owners” control some teams without formal stakes, making it harder to protect clubs from financial mismanagement.
He said: “There has always been resistance to classifying sports as a business, even though it clearly is in reality. If we allow private companies there will be greater transparency.”
The government is appealing the suspension of its order at the Supreme Court, Vítolo added.
Ezequiel Fernández Moores, a sports journalist, said he expected Milei to treat Estudiantes’ fan vote late next month or early March as a big political moment.
“Football is everything in Argentina,” he said. “If Milei can say ‘I’ve changed football’, then he’ll feel he’s proven to society that he was right about private capital and deregulation being our saviour.”
Additional reporting by Michael Pooler in São Paulo. Data visualisation by Dan Clark
