The scandal for alleged harassment and sexual abuse, which was uncovered by former referee Harold Perilla but which was filed in the Attorney General’s Office, might splash the board of the Colombian Football Federation (FCF).
The entity clarified in recent days that its head of arbitration, Ímer Machado, one of those pointed out by Perilla, was investigated but it was not possible to carry out further investigations because the alleged victims did not appear for the process. He explained it following the newspaper The Guardian assured that FIFA is formally investigating the complaints once morest him and once morest Óscar Julián Ruiz, for the aforementioned crimes.
However, that explanation may not be enough now that Perilla has revealed that Álvaro González Alzate, a member of the FCF Executive Committee, found out regarding the situation at the time and, according to his testimony, wanted to prevent the complaints from being filed.
“Only in 2019 did Álvaro González call me, he was anguished, he came from China, Japan or something like that, he told me on the call. He wanted to make an appointment with me before I filed the complaint, that he wanted to solve the issue internally… He wanted to do a record in which I returned to my position as a professional arbitrator and, well, that I handled that low profile, but obviously I did not do it, I hung up the phone and the next day I filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office, because one of those cases is not can fix with an act,” said Perilla in Noticias RCN.
“They simply filed a counterclaim once morest me for libel and slander, and I am waiting for the Prosecutor’s Office to respond, but no complaint has advanced. Nicolás Gallo, Óscar Julián Ruiz and Ímer Machado sued me for libel and slander. In the case of Machado They gave me three summonses and I did not want to attend, because obviously when the person who is sued does not attend, he loses that first instance of conciliation and the investigation is immediately opened, for this reason I did not attend any of them to open the investigation,” he added, ensuring that the strategy is to achieve a conciliation to which he is not willing.
The former referee assured in the talk that he will not give up on his cause: “We are going to expose the two prosecutors who did not do their job. We are going to demand prosecutors to give us guarantees and that the process be carried out successfully here in Colombia , but we know that at the international level, Fifa can sanction them and ban them from the soccer regime… We know that they work in Fifa, but they also work in Conmebol and well, the idea is to ban them and not work in Colombian soccer once more for now… In the criminal part, we are looking for prosecutors who give guarantees and they can pay as the justice says so, “he concluded.
