FIFA bans Paredes for 10 matches and fines Argentina over the Falklands banner shown after the England win

Leandro Paredes has been banned for 10 matches and fined $90,000 by FIFA's disciplinary committee for his part in the brawl that broke out after Argentina lost the World Cup final to Spain, in a set of rulings published on Friday that also punished three of his team-mates, his head coach and the Argentine federation itself.

The committee found that Paredes grabbed Spain's Eric Garcia by the throat and pushed Gavi to the ground after the final whistle in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Because FIFA's international calendar contains ten Argentina fixtures between now and June 2027, the suspension amounts in practice to a year out of the national side.

At a glance

• Paredes: 10-match ban and a $90,000 fine, effectively a year out of the Argentina squad
• Nahuel Molina: seven matches and $90,000; Thiago Almada: one match and $30,000
• Head coach Roberto Ayala: three matches and a $30,000 fine
• Spain's Gavi: one match, which he will serve against England in the Nations League on 26 September
• The Argentine FA fined $110,000, ordered to spend $100,000 on anti-racism work, with a further $100,000 deferred
• Spain won the final 1-0, Ferran Torres scoring in the second period of extra time after Enzo Fernandez was sent off

The sanctions in full

Paredes received the heaviest punishment, but he was not alone. Nahuel Molina was banned for seven matches and fined $90,000, while Thiago Almada was given a single-match suspension and a $30,000 fine. The head coach, Roberto Ayala, was banned for three matches and fined $30,000 for his conduct during the disorder.

Spain were not spared. Gavi, whom Paredes pushed to the ground, was himself given a one-match ban, which he will serve in Spain's Nations League fixture against England on 26 September. FIFA had charged the incidents as assault cases rather than as ordinary misconduct, which is why the tariffs ran so far above the usual two- or three-game range.

A punishment with few precedents

Ten matches puts Paredes in rare company. The comparison being drawn across South America is with Luis Suarez, banned for nine international matches in 2014 after biting Giorgio Chiellini at that year's World Cup, a sanction that has stood since as the benchmark for severity at the tournament.

The practical effect is heavier than the number suggests. A club ban of ten games spans perhaps two months; ten internationals, spread across four or five windows a year, stretches over the entire qualifying and friendly programme through to the middle of 2027. Paredes is in the closing phase of his international career, which makes the timing punishing rather than merely inconvenient.

The Falklands banner

Separately, FIFA fined the Argentine Football Association over the banner reading "Las Malvinas son Argentinas", meaning the Falklands are Argentine, that several players held up after their 2-1 semi-final win over England in Atlanta on 15 July. The federation's overall fine came to $110,000, covering that and other charges, with an additional $100,000 to be spent on anti-racism projects and $100,000 more deferred.

The display drew a formal complaint from the UK side at the time, with the business minister Peter Kyle urging FIFA to investigate what he called an egregious violation of the rules barring political messaging. Argentina's president, Javier Milei, took the opposite view, describing the gesture as perfectly valid and saying it reflected a sentiment shared across the country.

There is precedent here too. In 2014 the AFA was fined 30,000 Swiss francs after its players displayed an identical slogan before a friendly against Slovenia, a fine large enough to register and small enough not to deter.

What Argentina say

The federation has not accepted the rulings. In a statement issued after the decisions were published, the AFA said its legal department would "in a timely manner, request from FIFA the grounds for the reviewable rulings", the first procedural step towards an appeal to FIFA's appeal committee and potentially onward to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.

That route is well trodden and rarely quick. Suarez's 2014 appeal reduced neither the length of his international ban nor the four-month suspension from all football attached to it, though the Court of Arbitration for Sport did soften the stadium ban.

What happens next

Argentina's next competitive fixtures fall in the September international window, and Paredes, Molina and Ayala will all be absent unless an appeal succeeds and is expedited, an unlikely combination. For England supporters the more immediate date is 26 September, when Gavi sits out Spain's Nations League meeting with England as a direct consequence of a brawl England had no part in.