Nuevamente, gracias.

If you go to La Bombonera, outside the entrance to the Museo Boquense, you’ll see a ‘walk of fame’ with stars set into the pavement. Great ex-players, famous fans and so on. One of them – there’s a photo that I took of it illustrating my Pitch Invasion article this week – is dedicated to La Doce. THAT is the position the barras hold in Argentine football.

Shortly after I began my first tentative steps into following Argentine football (a few years before this site was born) I came across a quote claiming that one man was ‘one of the most powerful men in Argentine football’. That man was Rafael Di Zeo, the head of La Doce (currently about a year into a 4 1/2 year prison sentence for manslaughter).

Whether due to cowardice, laziness or – and I find this most likely – co-conspiracy, the boards simply won’t take action against the barras. When Italian football was going through Calciopoli back in the summer of 2006, one Argentine journalist reportedly lamented that ‘you’d never get this in Argentina – because in Argentina the corruption is embedded too deeply for the authorities to get hold of it.’

And Argentine football in the old days? Following the final of the inaugural World Cup in 1930 (Uruguay 4 – 2 Argentina in Montevideo), there were attacks on Uruguayan businesses and the embassy in Buenos Aires. It’s rarely been sweetness and light…

His response to the violence was that the Club presidents and administrators are totally corrupt. Of course, he shares the opinion with everybody else that the problem is complex and there are many actors. But he chose to target the clubs themselves.

This made me think that the best chance (albeit a tiny chance) of addressing the violence is at the club level. The barras won’t stop raising hell. The police and judiciary system are not able to stop the violence. But, what is the club presidents made some sort of peace with the Bravas? Or took the hard line on club membership and admission to the stadiums? I suppose club leaders would lose their lives or fade under threat of death. It is complex.

I wonder what Argentine futbol was like in the good ole days? What will be left of the local game for my children?

That being said, as I’ve said numerous times here and on other sites before, the influence of the barras is a poison that’s far, far too pervasive in Argentina and indeed across Latin America.

And finally, lest any confusion should arise, and for the sake of balance, I’d just like to point out again that in the three major incidents of the weekend just gone, only the stabbing of the Boca fan was a clearly result of barra brava-related violence.

The barrabravas would be more accurately described as “mafias”. Certainly that is the case with many of them, if not all. The young, and at times not so young, men that we all see on tv wearing masks and engaging in acts of intimidation and violence are but the tip of an iceberg, and essentially are foot soldiers(some better trained and regulated than others). The men in the upper echelons of these mafias are connected (loosely if not in some cases-closely) with the clubs themselves and at times with members of the judiciary and government. The objective-maintaining power and control of certain money making schemes. Just as in the more visible mafias of the world, there is often infighting, power plays, loose cannons and the ensueing public conflict. Consolidation of power and control on a very local level cannot be underestimated in Argentine society. All the big players in the drama want their own vanguard of able supporters(armed if necessary) to assist them in wielding influence and maintaining their positions. The upshot of all this, is that the roots and tentacles of this mess are so intertwined with government figures, clubs etc. that trying to put an end to it is damn near impossible. Very sad and disillusioning. Hey, why do you think Macri wants his own police force ?