Two Argentine football referees will be denounced on Monday in the match-fixing investigation. According to the Argentine News Agency, the deputy of the Civic Coalition, Facundo Del Gaiso, will file the complaint, alleging that the treasurer of the Argentine Football Association and Claudio Tapia's right-hand man, Pablo Toviggino, sent them money. The amounts were transferred from an account belonging to Malte SRL, the company also responsible for implementing VAR in Argentine football and that bought the Pilar mansion where luxury cars in Toviggino's name appeared. The scandal in the Argentine football match-fixing case continues and, starting tomorrow, will have two new accused: referees Fernando Espinoza and Emanuel Ejarque. According to the complaint, the firm Malte SRL, run by Juan Pablo Beacon, a former confidant of Toviggino who now acts as a collaborator, made transfers to the mentioned referees starting in 2020. One case involves Fernando Espinoza, a referee frequently questioned by fans of Argentine First Division clubs, who is accused of having received 120,000 pesos, approximately 1,400 dollars at the time, on December 4, 2020. Additionally, just as phone communications between Beacon and Luis Lobo Medina, the first accused, had appeared in recent days, the same happened with Espinoza: after the match between Racing and Arsenal on April 18, 2021, in which decisions made by the referee are discussed and “Pablo” is mentioned, supposedly referring to the AFA treasurer and president of the Federal Council. Ejarque, for his part, is accused of receiving at least eight transfers from Malte SRL between May 2021 and February 2022, totaling 362,000, which, according to the value of the US dollar at each moment, is equivalent to 3,800 dollars. Other referees mentioned in the case were Lobo Medina, the first accused on Thursday, March 19, Adrián Franklin, a regular VAR referee, Jorge Sosa, and Federico Beligoy, a former referee who currently serves as the national director of arbitration for the AFA. The aforementioned firm Malte SRL is, according to Del Gaiso's complaint, the same one that received USD 500,000 to implement video refereeing in the First Division, the one in charge of buying Toviggino's Pilar mansion for 1,800,000 dollars, and which, according to the records of the Revenue and Customs Control Agency (ARCA), invoices illicitly.
