AFA probes cyberattack over World Cup refereeing emails

• The Argentine Football Association said its email system may have been targeted in a cyberattack.
• Unauthorized emails questioned Argentina's World Cup win over Egypt.
• The Egyptian Football Association called on FIFA to remove referee François Letexier from the tournament.
• Argentine media reported the suspected involvement of hackers claiming to support Egypt.

The Argentine Football Association (AFA) has launched a comprehensive security investigation after indicating that its institutional network may have fallen victim to a targeted cyber attack.

The announcement follows the distribution of rogue emails from official AFA accounts to members of the media, which heavily criticized the officiating in the national team's dramatic 3-2 victory over Egypt at the World Cup.

The reigning world champions had appeared destined for a shock round-of-16 elimination after falling into a 2-0 deficit against Egypt.

However, a late comeback allowed Argentina to secure a 3-2 victory and book their place in the quarter-finals.

Controversial claims 

Following the on-pitch result, the Egyptian Football Association lodged a formal complaint with FIFA, demanding the expulsion of French referee François Letexier and his entire officiating crew from the tournament due to alleged bias in favor of the South American side.

Shortly after, emails from compromised AFA mail servers began circulating to sports journalists.

According to a report by Argentine news outlet La Calle, the rogue correspondence explicitly declared that "Argentina did not win" and claimed that the final scoreline was the direct result of "corrupt refereeing decisions."

Internal sources within the AFA informed the publication that they suspect a group of Egyptian-origin hackers engineered the breach to broadcast the criticisms while simultaneously praising the performance of the Egyptian national team.

Official AFA warning

In response to the electronic breach, the AFA issued an emergency statement to disavow the unauthorized communications and stabilize its digital footprint.

"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 authorized by our team," the AFA statement read.

The federation urged media professionals and 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."

The association concluded by clarifying that defensive measures are actively underway: "There is a possibility that our account has been subject to unauthorized access, so we are working to clarify what happened and adopt the necessary security measures."