A court in Rosario sentenced a football supporter to seven-and-a-half years in prison on Wednesday for threatening Ángel Di Maria in 2024 in a bid to prevent the World Cup winner from returning to Argentina to play for his boyhood club Rosario Central.

Sergio 'Bebe' Di Vanni, 45, was found guilty of ordering two acts of intimidation against Di Maria and his family on March 25, 2024, with the aim of dissuading the former national team star from returning from abroad to join the side.

Di Maria was playing for Portugal’s Benfica at the time but was considering a return to Rosario Central, where he began his professional career.

He eventually completed the move in 2025.

Rosario Central and Newell’s Old Boys, Lionel Messi’s childhood club, are the two major teams in Rosario, around 300 kilometres north of Buenos Aires. They are fierce local rivals.

The first attack took place in the early hours of March 25, when two people fired shots from a car at the entrance to a gated community where Di Maria owned a property he used while in Argentina.

According to the court ruling, Di Vanni hired two people, aged 37 and 25, to carry out the shooting in exchange for four million pesos – equivalent to around US$2,600 at current exchange rates.

The perpetrators also left a message threatening to kill Di Maria’s relatives if he returned to play for Rosario Central.

Later that day, a man acting on Di Vanni’s orders delivered a box to an estate agency run by one of the footballer’s sisters. It contained a pig’s head, a bullet and a threatening note directed at the family of the former Albiceleste forward.

A 25-year-old woman, Belén Gutiérrez, was identified by prosecutors as one of those who carried out the intimidation. She was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison in mid-2026 after pleading guilty under a plea agreement. A third suspect remains remanded in custody.

The investigation found that Di Vanni belonged to a dissident faction of Newell’s Old Boys’ ultras, the organised and often violent groups of supporters that exert influence over domestic football clubs.

The faction answered to Alejandro Ficcadenti, known as ;El Rengo,' a figure who was seeking to wrest control of Newell’s supporters’ group from its existing leadership.

According to the ruling, the campaign against Di Maria was intended to prevent the player from returning from abroad to join Central, while allowing the dissident faction to build support among its followers and strengthen its bid to take control of the ultras.

Di Vanni’s sentence also covered separate offences related to his involvement in the supporters’ group.

Following the threats, Di Maria initially abandoned his plans to return to Argentina, citing concerns for his family’s safety.

He eventually changed his mind and joined Rosario Central in 2025.

Now 38, he has spent the past two seasons with the club.

– TIMES/AFP