It’s been mostly pretty dire on the pitch, but 2008 will be remembered fondly by fans of Racing Club de Avellaneda. After years of fan protests and struggles, Blanquiceleste were finally pronounced unfit to run the club earlier in the year, and on Sunday 21st December, elections were held for the first time in eleven years to decide the new president. The biggest fear was that Daniel Lalín – the man who dragged Racing into administration in the pre-Blanquiceleste days - would regain control over the club. In the end, he was nowhere near to winning.
Lalín didn’t even go along to the club’s premises to cast his vote, after Héctor García Cuerva, the man in charge of overseeing the electoral process, refused to make any special promises over his personal safety. ‘García Cuerva offered to let us enter through a back door,’ one of Lalín’s cohorts explained in a statement, ‘but we’re never going to enter through any back doors and even less at Racing, so we hold [García Cuerva] responsible for our not being able to vote.’
Ginés González García, the Argentine ambassador to Chile, cast his vote and told the press that the elections mark ‘the end of a tragic period in Racing’s history.’ He’s not kidding.
The winner – made official in the last few minutes – was Rodolfo Molina, at the head of the Racing Vuelve (‘Racing return’) group. He took around 40% of the votes, and told TyCSports; ‘The hope is to have a new club, with order and transparency… for the last twenty years we’ve been in the hands of [one or the other] leader who isn’t a fan of the club.’ He also confirmed that he’ll keep Juan Manuel Llop as manager of the first team.
Merry Christmas, Racing fans.
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Thanks Sam!
I think today was more important than all of our matches in the Apertura put together.
Molina will start working as early as Monday morning and I’m confident in his love for Racing (hey…we Racing fans, never stop believing!). I like that he’s a very low profile guy that doesn’t want to participate in any fights or controversies with others.
He’s been saying: “Los pibes no se venden” (“The youngsters are not for sale”) and we’ll see if that promise doesn’t come back to hunt him. Hopefully he’ll be able to generate the resources to keep at least a few of the brighter prospects (like Zuculini, Prichoda and Shaffer) for a couple of seasons and make them play around a couple of decent signings that MUST come to Racing if we are to avoid the promoción after the next Clausura.
There’ll be time to talk about that. In the meantime, Feliz Navidad, Racing. Indeed!
Gracias. Dale la Acade! Man…these have been trying times.
completely off the point but did anyone see Emiliano Insua play for liverpool yesterday? Man of the match. Absolute quality crosser of the ball. Never paniced when under pressure. i know its only one game but hes only 19 and looks a good one for the future. Does anyone know why he left boca so early and did he play at all for them??
Congrats to Racing fans for finally being able to look up, though personally the gift I would want is pretending the past few months never happened, at least for River.
Come on, Nolan. Cheer up! Don’t forget it was in “the past few months” that River won the Clausura 2008!!!!
Great news for Racing, would love to see Llop continue his pibe project now. I will admit, I wasn’t happy with Llop for a long time, but who is better now? Simeone? Would this be making the same mistake twice, that was made swapping Cholo for Merlo in the same place. If Cholo had stayed, Racing would not be in this position now… but it looks like this is Llop’s time now, and we should all trust in him to battle away from the drop. The new institutional stability should help?