Alejandro
DomÃnguez Wilson-Smith, the president of Conmebol, coined the phrase
"football everywhere". What did not explain well is in what parts. Since
football is mediated by television and the corporations that feed it, since it
grows homeless and has built its own empire, anything can be done on its
behalf. Even when it comes to South American football.
As discredited as now profitable. When it was decided to
play the final of the Copa Libertadores to a single match and on a neutral
court, the regional political instability had not grown to the limits known
today. With Chile besieged by the police and a Piñera with nostalgia for
Pinochet, Bolivia in full escalation towards a coup, Brazil ruled by the führer
Bolsonaro, Colombia mired in violence, Ecuador that comes from a revolt against
the neoliberal Lenin Moreno, Venezuela besieged with its incessant diaspora,
and broken and socially decimated Argentina, Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay seem
calm countries. That is why they were considered as possible venues of the
match between Flamengo and River on November 23. Finally, we chose Lima where
citizen violence became uncontrollable. In South America, football was always played
with this type of conflict. It does not resist planning too early.
The idea of organizing the final of the Libertadores in
a single venue was copied from the format that has the definition of the
Champions League. The
Paraguayan leader had already anticipated it in 2016: "I would like the
possibility of, in a short time, having only one final and that it can move
within the 10 countries". For the political reasons indicated, they were
currently reduced to three. But Dominguez insists that football must
reach everywhere, as if it had not already invaded everything, omnipresent as
it is in the society of spectacle sport.
In a
Conmebol workshop held last March in Buenos Aires, the Director of
Confederation Club Competitions, Fred Nantes, announced: "This year we
have the organization of 380 matches between Libertadores, Sudamericana and
Recopa and we must look forward to do this stage well".
The leaders of Conmebol would never have imagined the
scenario of instability that took over the region. And less in Chile, where the
praised trans-Andean development model - praised by the propagators of
neoliberalism - exploded in the face of the president, former club owner Colo
Colo and friend of Mauricio Macri. Dominguez Wilson-Smith and the leaders who
think like him, it seems to them that South America is Europe at this moment in
history. At least in the football language they speak. He was experienced last
year when they took the Cup final to Madrid after the second leg between River
and Boca in Nunez was suspended. Such was the rejection caused by this
initiative, which now ruled out the Miami and Doha headquarters in the United
States and Qatar, because they would have dynamited the current final for a few
million dollars.
La Conmebol swims in money. His own president said this year at his last
Congress: "We are not the most money-generating confederation, but the
ones that spend the most money per country, in the worl". This year the
Copa Libertadores distributed 211 million dollars in prizes, against the 70
that had been distributed in the previous edition. The champion will be
rewarded with 12 million for winning the title, the runner-up with half and
each one will pocket 25 percent of the net proceeds of the final in Lima. The
only ones who will lose will be the fans of River and Flamengo who must travel
almost the same flight time - a little more Brazilians - and disburse money
that only a minority could pay in their respective countries.
Moving from Buenos Aires to the Peruvian capital
according to a travel and tourism platform (Kayak.com) costs 81,551 pesos at
the time of the flight and requires paying 1,419 pesos per day for
accommodation if you leave on Friday 22 and return on Sunday 24. The distances
in our continent mark one of the great differences with Europe. Traveling from
Rio de Janeiro or our Federal Capital to Lima requires more time than a
transfer from Madrid to Istanbul, where the last final was played, crossing
France, Italy, Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria (4 hours, 15 minutes). But it is
also much more expensive. A flight along that European route can cost between
10 thousand and 15 thousand Argentine pesos at a low cost, almost seven times
less than going from Ezeiza to the Jorge Chavez Lima airport.
If a Flamengo fan wanted to save some real ones and cross
the South American continent across the width, from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, he could do it by bus for four and a half days through the Ormeño
International Express on a 102-hour and 6,300-kilometer journey. If he ventured
out of River it would take 30 percent less. Seventy hours in almost three days.
Semi-bed microphones leave from Retiro that charge 9000 pesos for a one-way
trip. However, in any case they would be epic displacements.
If a Flamengo fan wanted to save some real ones
and cross the South American continent across the width, from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, he could do it by bus for four and a half days through the Ormeño
International Express on a 102-hour and 6,300-kilometer journey. If he ventured
out of River it would take 30 percent less. Seventy hours in almost three days.
Semi-bed microphones leave from Retiro that charge 9000 pesos for a one-way
trip. However, in any case they would be epic displacements.
SOURCE: Página12
