2023-10-15 06:20:26
While celebrating the three matches of the 2030 World Cup that will be played in South America and thanking the head of Conmebol, Alejandro Domínguez, Claudio Tapia paused, turned his head to the left, looked at Sergio Massa and said: “There is a huge challenge when it is surely your turn to lead this country.” The Ezeiza grounds, filled with leaders of all categories, began to applaud the president of the AFA, in what was the most concrete explanation of a support that, a week before the elections, no one hides: the vast majority of football Argentine will vote for the candidate of Unión por la Patria, Sergio Massa. “It is out of conviction, but also for survival,” the manager of a large club tells PROFILE. Sports limited companies are a recurring fear among those who pull the strings of domestic football.
For those who know the daily life of the clubs and the corridors of Viamonte 1366, what happened ten days ago at the press conference held by Tapia, Massa and the Minister of Tourism and Sports, Matías Lammens, is nothing new: for years that Massa builds power in Argentine soccer. Sometimes due to political strategy, and other times because interpersonal relationships allow him to sow support that he now needs to reap.
The return of Decree 1212, which establishes a special contribution regime for clubs and which had been annulled during the Mauricio Macri government, should be read along those lines. That was one of the five demands of the leadership since this government began. It crystallized in these days, regarding the time, but work was done to finalize it for months. In fact, at the Executive Committee meeting on Tuesday, June 6, the director of the AFIP, Carlos Castagneto, went with the director of YPF Santiago Carreras, who for years has functioned as a link between Kirchnerism and the AFA, to present the project. which Lammens now announced.
Chancellors. Massa doesn’t always come on stage when it comes to football. He often preferred the background, like when he helped dismantle the Super League so that the organization of the country’s main soccer tournament returned to the orbit of the AFA. It was in January 2020 at his home in Tigre, with Tapia, Marcelo Tinelli, Jorge Amor Ameal and Nicolás Russo.
The photo of that meeting had been published by Pablo Toviggino, Tapia’s treasurer and historic right-hand man. With Russo away from Lanús, Toviggino is Massa’s main alter ego when it comes to football. They have been friends for a long time and that relationship became a kind of personalized advice five years ago.
But besides Toviggino there are other bridges. Tigre, the club in his city, is chaired by Ezequiel Melaraña, a friend and one of the advisors of the Minister of Economy, who also receives support from four of the big five.
Jorge Pablo Brito, from River, inherited the friendship he had with his father; Víctor Blanco, from Racing, explains his support in private; and in San Lorenzo, Horacio Arreceygor maintains a dialogue on union and political issues.
In Boca, Massa cuts both ways: president Jorge Amor Ameal and Juan Román Riquelme, vice president and who will try to remain in the club following December, in other high-voltage political elections. With Román, the relationship began due to geographical proximity and intensified due to affinity. It was because of Massa that in 2015 he was declared an illustrious citizen of Tigre. That “excellent relationship we have with Román,” as Malena Galmarini acknowledged in public before questioning him regarding his statements regarding Sebastián Villa and the complaints of gender violence; prevails in these days when the vote is sought one by one. Ameal’s relationship with Massa comes through the mother-in-law of the leader of the Frente Renovador, Marcela Durrieu, mother of Malena and close friend of the wife of the current president of Boca.
Of course there will be obvious and explicit exceptions. The candidacy for Together for Change for the Buenos Aires governorship of Nestor Grindetti, president of Independiente, or the sympathy with that space of Andrés Fassi, from Talleres, are the most visible.
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