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Maradona and the Broken Situation
By ROB HUGHES
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Diego Armando Maradona Photo
goal.com
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For once, Diego Armando Maradona is in better shape than
his country.
The Argentine demigod, rescued from death's door more than once in his
turbulent past, is in Moscow, supervising the national squad for a friendly
soccer match on Wednesday against Russia.
Maradona is fit and well and never happier than when he is playing with
his 6-month-old grandson, Benjamin Aguero. His describes his job as Argentina's
coach as "trying to get some things through to those 25 little heads."
Luckily for him, those little heads include some wonderful talents. Lionel
Messi is one. Sergio Aguero, the father of Maradona's grandson, is another.
And luckily, all except three of the squad are employed outside Argentina.
The domestic leagues are bankrupt. Founded in 1893, and as integral as
Argentine beef ever since, soccer faces indefinite suspension.
"The situation in Argentine football is broken," said Julio Grondona,
the president of the national federation. "The only solution is money.
The institutions are spending more than they are taking in."
Grondona has a foot in two very different financial pools. He is president
of the financial committee of FIFA, the world governing body. He became
head of Argentina's national federation in 1979, when he was 48 years
of age.
Today, as FIFA sits on an equity of $900 million, the Argentine football
association desperately seeks handouts. Grondona has pleaded with the
television companies to pay up almost three years of subscriptions in
a lump sum in advance, and been turned down.
He has asked the Argentine government to forgo the tax debts of clubs,
in effect to subsidize soccer's bankruptcy. The government said no.
Next, Grondona suggested a levy of 12 pesos, or just over $3, a month
on the cable TV fees the public pays. No again. Then he flouted FIFA's
fight against gambling on soccer, by unsuccessfully proposing that the
government relax its ban on Internet betting on soccer. All of it, so
far, founders on deaf ears. The clock is ticking. Barring a miracle, the
season kickoff this weekend will not happen.
Grondona's own image is besmirched in graffiti outside the A.F.A. headquarters
in central Buenos Aires. "Julio Grondona, thief!" read one message.
He is isolated and seemingly without a solution of any kind. Argentina
has exported players ever since Alfredo Di Stefano joined Real Madrid
in the 1950s, through the Maradona generation in the 1980s, to Messi and
company nowadays.
However, the buyers, even the European clubs, are also in a world recession.
There are exceptions. Manchester City's owner, from Abu Dhabi, has just
paid $40 million for Carlos Tevez. Real Madrid has Fernando Gago among
its burgeoning galaxy of stars. But as Grondona points out, the transfer
fees these days are siphoned off into the pockets of agents and cartels
that either own or part-own growing numbers of Argentine prospects.
Maradona is talking up Argentina's chances of winning the 2010 World Cup,
and he could be right. However, Tevez is only 25, and each time he has
moved on - from Boca Juniors to Corinthians of Sao Paulo to West Ham United,
Manchester United and now Man City - the syndicate that owns his registration
reaps the rewards.
That syndicate is headed by an Iranian entrepreneur, Kia Joorabchian,
on behalf of undisclosed shareholders, thought to be Russian.
Many, many years ago, when Maradona was on the move between European clubs,
Carlos Menem, then Argentina's president, told me that he would stop the
trafficking of young players out of Argentina. The A.F.A., led by Grondona,
said it would fight any such proposal tooth and nail.
The business of soccer was buying and selling players. The A.F.A. was
and is the ruling council of the clubs. Argentina's sporting model is
Europe, and the European pay masters are not as flush with cash as they
once were.
In 2008, the sales of players out of Argentina topped $150 million. This
year, so far, it has grossed $34 million.
The blame game in Buenos Aires hots up. Sergio Marchi, secretary general
of Argentina's soccer players' union, points the finger at the A.F.A.
for failing to keep its house in order.
"I hope the A.F.A. follows its own rules and sanctions those who don't
meet their obligations," Marchi said last week. He added that the sport
was poorly commercialized. "It's obsolete," he added. "You can see the
problems in infrastructure, the bathrooms of some clubs look like Kosovo."
Marchi's union reckons there are 21 Argentine clubs mired in debt. These
include the top teams, River Plate, Racing, Huracan, Independiente, Newell's,
Rosario, San Lorenzo, which among them owe some $182 million.
"The clubs have a rotting corpse in the room," says Marchi. "And yet they
are out shopping!"
He refers to the reports that Boca Juniors, with a reported debt of $2.6
million, has signed three new players this summer. Independiente has paid
$650,000 to San Lorenzo for the striker Andres Silvera and bid $2 million
to Sporting Lisbon for Leandro Romagnoli. Racing reportedly has spent
$4 million on players this year.
The sums are tiny compared with Real Madrid, whose $400 million summer
spree would wipe out the national debt of Argentine soccer threefold.
Yet the Argentine people still need their sport. Perhaps now more than
ever. They see their stars performing across Europe. They will watch,
if they can afford the fee, the Moscow friendly game on TV on Wednesday.
Somehow, Grondona, after 30 years of supervising the whole show in his
struggling land and decades of masterminding FIFA's profitability, seems
to have run out of ideas.
And Maradona, whom Grondona chose as the savior to coach the national
squad, looks on and frets. He needs the players to be free of worries,
at home and abroad and at the bank.
Those in domestic soccer haven't been paid lately.
"The clubs shouldn't do whatever they want," Maradona said on radio Del
Plata last weekend. "If you buy players, you have to be responsible and
not blame others." Lectures in responsibility from Diego Maradona. The
times are a changing.
NY
Times.com, August 11, 2009
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