Argentina football matches canceled after assassination attempt

The Argentinian Football Association (AFA) has announced that all football matches set to be played on Friday have been suspended after a failed assassination attempt on vice president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Fernandez de Kirchner, who was also the country's president from 2007 to 2015, was arriving at her home in the upscale Recoleta neighborhood in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires when a man alleged to be a Brazilian national emerged from a crowd.

The suspect, 35, pointed a gun at Fernandez de Kirchner's head from close range but his pistol, loaded with five bullets, didn't fire correctly after he pulled the trigger. He has since been arrested.

President Alberto Fernandez announced Friday September 2 as a national holiday, following which the AFA said that all matches set to take place the same day had also been suspended.

"The Argentinian Football Association expresses its strongest repudiation of what happened with vice president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner," read an AFA statement.

"We call on society as a whole, warning that violence of any kind is never the solution," it added.

Three games that were meant to take place in Argentina's top flight on Matchday 17 on Friday were Patronato versus Union, Rosario Central versus Talleres, and Lanus versus Tigre.

And while a series of other matches have also been postponed in lower tiers and in the women's championship, those planned for Saturday and Sunday are still set to go ahead.