About 6,000 Argentina Fans Get Banned From World Cup Stadiums

Nearly 6,000 Argentina supporters reportedly get banned from attending stadiums at the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

About 6000 Argentina supporters, mostly violent fans and citizens involved in illegal associations and even those in debt for food dues, will be banned and will not be allowed to enter the stadiums in Qatar for the upcoming FIFA World Cup matches, the Daily Star reported.

“The violent ones are here and in Qatar. We want to bring peace back to football and that the violent ones are outside the stadiums,” the capital city’s Justice and Security Minister Marcelo D’Alessandro said.

“They were included for belonging to the ‘barras’ [violent fans], for participating in violent acts, for illicit associations such as ‘trapitos’ [banned street businesses], and for owing maintenance payments [from divorced parents],” D’Alessandro added.

To carry out the controls during the World Cup matches, delegations of different police bodies of the country will be sent to work together with the Qatari security authorities.

The Argentinian national security ministry reportedly signed a cooperation agreement with the Qatari embassy to prevent violent Argentine fans from attending the World Cup. The decision went final earlier this summer and was signed in June, ESPN reported.

D’Allessandro stated that the rule applies to a number of fans watching matches in Argentina as well. He added that out of the total 6000 banned, around 3,000 of the banned are “barrabravas” who cannot attend soccer games and local league matches in their own country.

Argentina currently ranks third in the world standings and is one of the favorites to collect the World Cup trophy this year. Lionel Messi leads the Argentina side in the Word Cup. The team will compete in Group C alongside Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Poland. Argentina's first match in this year's World Cup tournament is against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Nov. 22.

In a similar but unrelated incident, Messi suffered an inflamed Achilles tendon just two weeks before the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, as previously reported.

Messi will be taking a short break to treat his inflamed Achilles tendon as a precautionary measure. Messi has also been the subject of much talk lately as rumors have been floating around that the coming FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 may be his last. This would make it his only chance left to bring home the trophy for Argentina.

Argentina has not won the World Cup since Diego Maradona brought home the trophy back in 1986.