Julio Grondona president of the Argentine Football Association (AFA) and a vice president of the international football association FIFA, died Wednesday.
Andres Ventura, spokesman for the national team, told dpa that he had been hospitalised for the illness in the morning. He went into surgery for an aneurysm in his carotid artery, according to media reports.
He was 82. Grondona led the AFA for 35 years. “The death of a giant,” the AFA wrote. According to the newspaper Clarin, next weekend’s games will be postponed.
Grondona was not without his controversies.
In the latest incident, during the World Cup, FIFA asked his son Humberto Grondona for a “written explanation” over how personalised tickets were sold for a profit.
A standoff between the late Grondona and Argentine football great Diego Maradona saw Maradona quit as national coach after the quarter-final loss in the 2010 World Cup.
During the Brazil World Cup, Maradona flashed a middle-finger insult aimed at Grondona in a TV broadcast. But on Wednesday, he posted a photo on his Facebook page showing him as a young man, laughing at Grondona’s side.
“Don Julio” became president of the AFA in 1979, a year after Argentina won the World Cup title on its own turf. He also oversaw Argentina’s World Cup victory in Mexico in 1986 and the finals in 1990 and 2014. He watched the narrow 0-1 overtime defeat against Germany on July 13th in Macarena.
Lionel Messi, captain of Argentina’s team, wrote on Facebook that it was a “very sad day for football, for all of Argentina and for me.”
FIFA president Joseph Blatter, who counted Grondona as one of his most powerful supporters, gave his condolences via Twitter: “Very sad for the loss of a great friend. Julio Grondona has left us at 82. Rest in peace.”
