ISTANBUL / Ahmed Hassan / Anadolu

The Argentine Football Association announced Friday that it suspects one of its accounts was hacked, following reports of journalists receiving emails from an official account that criticized the refereeing in its national team's 3-2 win over Egypt in the 2026 World Cup round of 16.

The Argentine FA said in a statement: 'We would like to inform you that we have detected possible emails sent from one of our corporate accounts that were not created or authorized by our team.'

It continued: 'In light of this situation, and while we carry out the necessary verification procedures with the systems department, we ask you to disregard any message you have recently received from our account that appears unusual, especially if it contains links or attachments or requests personal information.'

It added: 'There is a possibility that our account has been accessed without authorization, so we are working to clarify what happened and take the necessary security measures.'

The association concluded its statement by saying: 'Our systems have appropriate security and protection measures, and the incident is being analyzed to determine its source and scope. Thank you very much for your attention and cooperation.'

Reports indicated that emails were sent from an account belonging to the Argentine association to journalists after Tuesday's match, stating that 'Argentina did not win' and that the result was due to 'corrupt refereeing decisions.'

The messages also praised the performance of the Egyptian national team during the match.

Sources in the Argentine association claimed that a group of hackers of Egyptian origin were behind sending those messages.

The Argentine national team, the World Cup holder, seemed close to elimination in the round of 16 after falling behind Egypt by two unanswered goals scored by Yasser Ibrahim and Mostafa Ziko.

But Cristian Romero reduced the deficit 11 minutes before the end of the match, before Lionel Messi equalized five minutes later.

In the second minute of stoppage time, Enzo Fernández scored the winning goal for Argentina, leading his team to the quarterfinals to face Switzerland on Sunday.

After the match, the Egyptian Football Association requested FIFA to exclude French referee François Letexier and his officiating crew from the tournament, alleging bias in favor of Argentina.

Egyptian coach Hossam Hassan said after the match that his team was 'treated unfairly' and 'was wronged.'

He added: 'Maybe they wanted to keep the world champion in the competition. Maybe they wanted Messi to stay in the competition.'