A football fan was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison by an Argentine court on Wednesday for threatening Angel Di Maria in 2024, in an attempt to keep the World Cup winner from returning to Argentina at the end of his career.
A court in Rosario convicted Sergio Di Vanni, 45, of ordering acts of intimidation against Di Maria’s family aimed at dissuading the former Argentina international from coming back from abroad to play for a rival club.
At the time, in March 2024, Di Maria was playing for Benfica but was weighing a return to his boyhood club Rosario Central, a move he eventually completed in 2025.
Rosario Central and Newell’s Old Boys, Lionel Messi’s childhood club, are the two major teams in Rosario and are fierce local rivals.
The threats by he football fan included gunshots fired near a gated community where Di Maria owns a property, as well as the dumping of a pig’s head with a bullet wound outside an estate agency run by his sister, along with a message threatening his daughter.
A 25-year-old woman, Belen Gutierrez, whom prosecutors identified as one of the perpetrators, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison in June after entering a plea agreement.
A third suspect remains in pre-trial detention. Prosecutors alleged that the two carried out the threats in exchange for four million pesos ($2,600).
According to the prosecution, the intimidation campaign was tied to an internal power struggle among Newell’s ultras. Di Vanni’s sentence also covered separate offenses connected to his involvement in the supporters’ group.
After the threats, Di Maria initially gave up his plans to return to Argentina for the safety of his family.
He ultimately reversed that decision and, now 38, has spent the past two seasons at Rosario Central, helping the club win the Argentine title at the end of 2025.
