Argentine football club All Boys will have to play home matches without fans in the stands for the remainder of the season. That was the Argentine Football Association’s determination after the club’s supporters were involved in anti-Semitic incidents last week.

The AFA announced the sanctions on Thursday through its weekly discipline court bulletin.

“Provisionally, all matches the club plays as the home team will be carried without spectators in attendance,” read the statement. It also gives the club five days from the release of the bulletin to acknowledge the disciplinary action and issue any response.

This AFA ban is added to the Buenos Aires City government sanctions released earlier this week also banning fans from attending the club’s next two home games. They also forbid flags or percussion instruments, a staple of Argentine football fans match-going experience, for the following six encounters.

Sixteen members of the All Boys barrabrava, the violent organized club fan group, were detained for the incidents. They have been banned from entering any stadiums in Argentina for the next two years. The club also determined they will be suspended as club members for four years, meaning they won’t be allowed to enter club facilities.

The incidents

The incidents unfolded on June 29, as All Boys hosted Atlanta in an Argentine second division matchup. Several hooded fans were seen carrying a casket with the Atlanta colors and an Israeli flag in the vicinity of the stadium, in the Floresta neighborhood. They also flew the flags of Iran and Palestine and handed out pamphlets with anti-Semitic chants and messages.

Once the game started, a drone carrying the Palestine flag overflew the pitch, and All Boys’ fans sang anti-Semitic chants in the stands.

Atlanta has been linked to the Argentine Jewish diaspora since at least the 1940s, when a large Jewish community developed in Villa Crespo, the neighborhood the club is located in. Since then, it has been the target of several anti-Semitic acts.

In June 2024, Buenos Aires City slapped a four-year ban on an All Boys fan — and a one-year prohibition on another four — for similar acts. In May 2023, a banner with a message condemning Israel showed up in front of the Atlanta stadium in the build-up to a game.

Contacted by the Herald for comment, Atlanta press officer Marcelo Santoro confirmed the club would not release a statement of their own and only endorse what AFA said. He highlighted the actions of the All Boys board, saying that Atlanta club representatives felt “looked after at every point” and that nobody on the team or staff had “any issues whatsoever entering or exiting the stadium.” Santoro also lamented the issue and said that the problem exceeds sports, describing it as a “problem within society.”