Boca Juniors travel to Racing today for the first big clásico of 2011, and Friday hardly saw them preparing well for it as an institution. At the end of a week in which Juan Román Riquelme confirmed he almost definitely won’t play (to cancel out the cruciate ligament injury which will keep Racing’s Giovanni Moreno out for six months), Boca held their first directors’ meeting of the year. And two directors had to pulled apart after coming very close to hitting each other.
José Beraldi and Marcelo London were the directors in question. London used to be director in charge of the professional football division, but has recently been relocated to head the club’s amateur football section. He accused Beraldi’s brother, Fabián, of corruption, at which point José Beraldi waded in and a slanging match started which was moments away from deteriorating into a fist fight before other directors pulled the two apart.
London apparently has two grievances against Fabián Beraldi. The first is that he feels he’s the one behind what London clearly sees as a demotion to the amateur division. The second is that Fabián reportedly informed London that he’d have to get all his decisions green-lighted by Diego Cohen, the vice-president of amateur football at Boca, who also just happens to be a close confidant of the Beraldi brothers.
Both London and club president Jorge Amor Ameal denied stories about the fight getting physical, although both stopped short of denying it had almost done so. In a year in which Boca will have presidential elections in December, it seems certain figures are already moving against one another. Fans will just be hoping it doesn’t distract from the job on the pitch.
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Hasta El Gol Siempre 