Argentine FA investigates possible hack after emails criticize World

Argentina's football association (AFA) has indicated it may have been the target of a cyber attack after emails from its official accounts reportedly criticised refereeing in the national team's 3-2 win against Egypt at the World Cup. The reigning world champions looked set for a shock last-16 exit when they trailed Egypt 2-0 but produced a remarkable late comeback to reach the quarter-finals.

Alleged hacking incident

Following the defeat, the Egyptian Football Association asked Fifa to banish from the tournament the French referee Francois Letexier and the team of officials who were in charge, alleging bias in favour of Argentina. Argentine news outlet La Calle reported emails sent from the AFA's account to journalists after the match stated "Argentina did not win" and the result was a result of "corrupt refereeing decisions". The publication said that AFA sources indicated a group of Egyptian-origin hackers were behind the emails, which also praised Egypt's performance.

Responding to the incident, an AFA statement read: "We want to inform you that we have detected the possible sending of emails from one of our institutional accounts that were not generated or authorised by our team." It asked the public to "dismiss any message that you have recently received from our account and that is unusual, especially if it contains links, attachments or requests personal information". "There is a possibility that our account has been subject to unauthorised access, so we are working to clarify what happened and adopt the necessary security measures," the AFA added.

Match details and aftermath

Egypt had taken a 2-0 lead in Atlanta through Yasser Ibrahim and Mostafa Zico. But Cristian Romero halved the deficit 11 minutes from time before Lionel Messi equalised five minutes later. Enzo Fernandez completed the comeback two minutes into injury time as Argentina set up a last-eight tie against Switzerland on Sunday.

Speaking after the defeat, Egypt boss Hossam Hassan said his side had been "treated unfairly" and "suffered injustice". Hassan added: "Perhaps they wanted to keep the world champion in the competition. Perhaps they wanted Messi to stay in the running. The world champion received support at every level. There seem to be pressures from the Argentina side on this outcome."