FIFA has handed down heavy punishments to the Argentine Football Association and to several players involved in the ugly scenes that followed the 2026 World Cup final, which Spain won 1-0 at the New York New Jersey Stadium on 19 July. The Disciplinary Committee fined the AFA $321,000 and ordered Argentina to play their next two home matches with limited spectator numbers set at 50 per cent of capacity.
The fine was imposed for breaches of several articles of the FIFA Disciplinary Code, including using a sporting event for demonstrations of a non-sporting nature, team misconduct, discrimination and racist abuse linked to discriminatory chants and gestures from supporters, and order and security at matches. The committee also ruled that $100,000 of the $321,000 fine must be invested in a plan to combat discrimination, while part of the sanction, covering one of the two matches and $100,000 of the fine, is suspended with a probationary period.
The heaviest individual punishments fell on the players caught up in the post-match brawl. Leandro Paredes, at the centre of the clash with the Spanish squad, was suspended for ten matches and fined $90,000. Nahuel Molina, the newly signed Roma full-back, received a seven-match suspension and a $90,000 fine. Thiago Almada and Spain's Pablo Martin Paez Gavira, known as Gavi, will each sit out one match and pay $30,000, while Argentina team official Roberto Ayala was handed a three-match suspension and a $30,000 fine.
