As the longest mid-season break in history comes to a close in Argentina, the excitement for football appears to have ended much of the public discussion surrounding all the off the field issues and corruption issues that have arisen this summer. The corruption has been denounced by a number of current players including high profile San Lorenzo captain, Fabrizio Coloccini.
Due to the ongoing disputes with FIFA about the legitimacy of the league and the organization of football in the country, Argentine football has been on an enforced break since early December and is already 3 weeks behind schedule in restarting. Coloccini, now playing for San Lorenzo, vented his frustrations recently in a public interview calling the authorities an embarrassment for thinking that they were of more importance than FIFA and could organize outside the league structure outside the frameworks set by the game’s top organisers. He went a step beyond calling football in the country an embarrassment and declared that it was ´the joke of the world´ due to this poor organization.
Coloccini also referred to corruption that is genrally widespread in the country but appeared to take aim more specifically at the tapes that were realeased by TYC sports in which Boca Juniors president, Daniel Angellici, speaks with Fernando Mitjans about player suspensions. Mitjans who was at the time the chairman of player sanctions to ask that two of his players don’t receive heavy suspensions in order to be able to play an important game against Velez Sarsfield. The exchange between the two makes fairly clear the level of corruption in the game as Mitjans confirms that he favours the interest of Angelici in allowing the players to play. The ex-Newcastle defender cited the case of Liverpool facing a lengthy ban from the Champions league as an example Argentine football should follow in order to rid itself of certain negative characteristics, most notably violence and corruption. River Plate captain, Leando Ponzio has since come out in support of the San Lorenzo man declaring that if Argentine Football had a competent authority then it would be the envy of the world. Unfortunately for both players there seems to be little made of Angelici´s comments apart from merely affirming what many already knew.
While the return of football is a welcome sight on one hand, the desire of Argentina to see football games appears likely to once again paper over the systemic cracks that plague the countries major Footballing institutions.
