With the consecration of Fabian Doman as the new president in the elections last Sunday, Independiente has become the new political head of the PRO in Argentine soccer. The membership of Doman, his vice presidents Néstor Grindetti and Juan Marconi and Cristian Ritondo (elected as representative but maximum operator of the space) within the party created and led by former president Mauricio Macri is visible to all and none of the 11,492 members who voted for them can claim ignorance or surprise at this reality. The turn has been given and Independiente has jumped without intermediate stops from a traditional club model headed and financed by a Peronist trade unionist like Hugo Moyano to another model with a private and managerial bias. that will be carried out by politicians and media figures who never hid (and even militated) their preferences for right-wing ideas.
If any doubt might remain regarding the political alignment of the new authorities of Independiente, the congratulatory tweet from Patricia Bullrich, president of the PRO and presidential candidate of Together for Change, left everything exposed. “BYE MOYANO! The gang and the mafia in Independiente are over, and I mightn’t vote because Moyano expelled me. The new authorities will rebuild the club; we the country” Bullrich wrote on Sunday, the irreversible trend of Doman’s victory was barely glimpsed, who for his part assured that “Now that Moyano has left, more resources will come to Independiente.”
Exhausted by the succession of bad campaigns and by the feeling that the club seems to be thrown into hopeless decline, the long-suffering red associates legitimately bet on a project that they suppose to be new and better. It will be seen in the future if the choice was successful or if on the contrary, once once more they returned to buy colored mirrors. And if Doman’s promises to attract investors who will eliminate the liability of more than 4,500 million pesos and bring reinforcements of true hierarchy that will allow Independiente to win cups and championships have any support. His last national title was the Apertura 2002 and since then, he has been going through the worst 20 years of his great football history.
Before the end of the year, Doman and his team must deliver concrete answers that will guide the course of his management. They will have to define whether Julio Falcioni continues to be the technical director (it gives the impression that he is not), the renewal or not of twelve contracts that expire at the end of the year, lift the inhibition declared by FIFA for the debt with the Uruguayan defender Gastón Silva and the embargo for 4.8 million dollars that the striker Gonzalo Verón locked on him and direct the multimillion-dollar liability. Perhaps his closeness to right-wing ideas and his affiliation to the PRO will make management easier for them and the promised fresh funds will flow. We will have to see it. As almost always, everything will end up defining the unpredictable spikes of the ball.
