Search: 'Independiente'

The hooligans of Buenos Aires don’t confine themselves to football, reports Martin Gambarotta. Though when they’re not busy hiring themselves out as political thugs, they cause plenty of disruption

Politics and football inevitably mix in Argentina and the product is not always good. Politics here means primordially one thing: the ruling Peronist party – a vast political machine. The latest crisis hitting football involves the usual: violence in derbies, allegations that hooligans (known here as barrabravas) turn up late at night to lecture players and speculation that the long reign of Julio Grondona as the head of the country’s FA is about to end. But it started with a massive fight not during a game, but in a political arena.

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Laws in Argentina have been changed to protect badly run clubs. Martin Gambarotta examines the peso, the dollar and the 'inflation effect'. 

The president of Argentina, Néstor Kirchner, has a dif­ficult job. The country owes bondholders from Tok­yo to Milan $90 billion (£50bn). That’s a debt no football club can equal. Argentina defaulted on that debt in 2001. Back then the entire debt of the 20 first division football clubs amounted to $291m. The coun­try was about to go up in flames and beloved football clubs were on the verge of burning with it. Boca Juniors, arguably the biggest club, had debts of 40 million pesos. But by 2002 people were asking: “Forty million what?”

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Luke Gosset reports on a disturbing trend of kidnapping players and their families in Argentina, which is persuading stars to leave the country or not return from abroad

Leonardo Astrada, one of Argentina’s best loved footballing sons, was due to announce offic-ially his retirement on the day River Plate clinched the title against Olimpo on the penultimate weekend of last season’s Clausura championship. The 33-year-old midfielder has won more trophies for the Buenos Aires club (12) than any footballer at any club in Argentina and looked forward to a rapturous reception. Un­fortunately, he did not travel to the game.

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Isidro Langara explores the reasons behind the deaprture of Jesus Gil from Atletico Madrid

Goodbye to the great entertainer. Atlético Mad­rid’s controversial president Jesús Gil y Gil has announced his resignation, claiming it’s the “best thing” for the club over which he loom­­ed large, figuratively and literally, for 16 years.

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His name is enough to secure him a coaching licence, but Diego Maradona’s forays into management have convinced few of his credentials, reports Ben Backwell

Following Argentina’s disastrous 2002 World Cup cam­paign, Diego Maradona declared from his Cu­ban retreat that he was willing to take over coaching the Argentine national team “for free”. “I have always said, and I repeat, that I am willing to manage the team without charging a single peso,” said Maradona, ad­ding that he would put the team “in order”. According to polls carried out by local websites among Argentines then howling for the head of coach Rafael Bielsa, there were few takers, and the offer was discreetly ig­nored by the country’s football ­association (AFA).

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