THE ARCHIVE
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Argentina | Argentina |
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That football and politics mix in Argentina is nothing new. But rarely has there been such an explicit case than the recent events at Boca Juniors. Mauricio Macri, the club’s millionaire president who runs his own centre-right party, is running for the lower house of congress in Buenos Aires in the election scheduled for October. Macri, club president since 1995, has turned Boca Juniors into a trophy-winning machine – the club picked up three out of four Copa Libertadores between 2000 and 2003, their best-ever run in South America’s top club competition. To give the club, and thereby his campaign, a boost before the mid-term elections, Macri recently hired Diego Maradona, now boasting he is clean from drugs, to run the club’s football department. But not everything has run smoothly for Macri. Boca lost the Libertadores final last year and won no local titles. The only joy in 2004 came when forward Marcelo Delgado, who had just rejoined the club after a stint in Mexico, rifled the winner from a free-kick against arch-rivals River Plate. And even with Boca at the top, Macri has not has not had an easy political ride. Boca won the Libertadores in 2003 but Macri, the son of a wealthy business tycoon who has faced corruption allegations in the past, lost the mayoral election in Buenos Aires in the run-off against the incumbent mayor, a liberal who had been endorsed by President Néstor Kirchner, who is very popular. But the current mayor’s career has been ruined by a nightclub fire in December 2004 that killed 194 – meaning that Buenos Aires is up for grabs once again and Macri is in with a chance of winning the election. From WSC 224 October 2005. What was happening this month On the subject...
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