After the World Cup crises: Milei imposes unprecedented penalties on "Argentina's haters" | Goal.com

Published on 30 Jul 2026 | Reading time: 2 minutes

Argentine President Javier Milei's government has issued a new decree barring foreigners who incite hatred against Argentina or its citizens, and allowing their deportation. The move has sparked wide-ranging debate over its enforceability and its legal implications.

The French networkRadio Monte Carlo (RMC) reported that the decree, which still needs parliamentary review, targets foreigners who "spread messages of hatred, whether spoken or written, or incite violence against the Argentine people as a whole, or against any Argentine citizen because of their nationality".

To justify the decision, the government cited what it described as "recent displays of hostility against the Republic of Argentina and Argentines".

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Milei never spelled out these "displays" directly. In recent days, though, he had spoken of an "anti-Argentina campaign" in the aftermath of the World Cup, against the backdrop of the criticism the Argentine national team and its fans faced abroad.

During a diplomatic tension with Brazil, he also accused the governments of Brazil and Mexico and the American Democratic Party of funding a campaign against Argentina, without providing any evidence.

"Whoever attacks the Republic of Argentina is not welcome in our country," Milei affirmed. The decree stressed that its measures do not cover ideological disagreements or political, academic or civil criticism, since the constitution guarantees these as rights.

The future of the decree remains undecided. Issued as a "decree of necessity and urgency", it faces review by a parliamentary committee before reaching the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, and it will not fall unless both chambers reject it together.

Legal experts have criticised the decree's wording. Lucia Galopo, a lawyer who specialises in international cases at the Centre for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), called the text "unclear", because it does not set out a precise definition of hate speech or mechanisms for proving it, leaving wide scope for interpretation and discretionary application.

All of this lands at an awkward moment for the Argentine Football Association. FIFA has announced disciplinary proceedings against it over events at the World Cup, which included allegations relating to discriminatory chants and gestures, the displaying of inappropriate messages by the team and the fans, the throwing of projectiles from the stands, and the incidents between the players of the two national teams after the final.

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