Argentina Football Association Email Hacked, Claims Cyber Attack

New York. The Football Association of Argentina (AFA) has indicated that its official email account has been targeted by a cyber attack (hacked).

The association made such a claim after messages criticizing the referee were sent from AFA's official email following the team's 3-2 victory against Egypt in the Round of 16 of the World Cup.

The World Cup-winning Argentina managed to reach the quarterfinals after coming back from a 2-0 deficit. After the loss, the Football Association of Egypt accused French referee François Letexier and other match officials of favoring Argentina and demanded their removal from the competition by FIFA.

Meanwhile, according to Argentine media outlet 'La Calé', messages sent to journalists from AFA's email account after the match stated, 'Argentina did not win' and that the result was due to 'corrupt referee decisions'. The media outlet, citing AFA sources, reported that a group of Egyptian hackers hacked the email and sent such messages, praising Egypt's performance.

Reacting to the incident, AFA issued a statement. The statement read, 'We want to inform you that some emails have been sent from one of our institutional accounts, which were not prepared or certified by our staff.'

AFA has urged the public to ignore strange messages coming from its account, especially emails requesting links, attachments, or personal details. The association added, 'There is a possibility of unauthorized access to our account. Therefore, we are working to clarify what happened and take necessary security measures.'

In the match held in Atlanta, Yasser Ibrahim and Mostafa Zico scored to give Egypt a 2-0 lead. However, with 11 minutes left in the game, Cristian Romero scored to reduce the deficit, and five minutes later, Lionel Messi equalized. In the second minute of injury time, Enzo Fernández scored to seal Argentina's victory. With this win, Argentina has set up a quarterfinal clash against Switzerland on Sunday.

After the loss, Egypt's head coach Hossam Hassan said his team was treated 'unfairly'. Hassan said, 'Perhaps they wanted to keep the World Cup winners in the competition. Perhaps they wanted to keep Messi in the game. The World Cup winners received support at every level. It seems that pressure was created from Argentina's side for the result of this match.'