The victory of Boca Juniors 1-0 ante Always Ready by Liberators cup brought about an unforeseen conflict in the previous one, which will surely add chapters in Conmebol. The Bolivian team denounced that the leadership of Xeneize (which in La Paz was headed by Juan Román Riquelme, vice president and leader of the Football Council, He left gifts to the arbitration list led by the Peruvian Kevin Ortegawhich led to police intervention.
Indeed, security agents entered the judges’ locker room and searched the gift bags. “There are four,” one of the officers is heard saying in the video released by the club’s press department and published on Twitter by journalist Jaime Vega, from Radio La Tremenda. Those who were in charge of the requisition were taking different t-shirts of the visit from the packages; you can see a white and a blue and yellow.
“Take them away, take them away,” says a person who accompanies the referees, while in the background you can see the catering table that they offer to the referees and Conmebol officials. “We are going to retain it and you tell us what we are going to do”warns the policeman who takes the lead.
To add spice to the story, Kevin Ortega made a decisive mistake in the match: sanctioned a non-existent penalty from goalkeeper Giménez to Salvio, which Toto himself converted into the only goal of the match, valid for Group E of the Copa Libertadores. From that determination, the lawsuit got out of hand. Y ended up expelling (fairly) the Colombian Mauricio Corteswhen after a riot he ended up kicking Fabra and Campuzano.
Is this practice unusual? Do not. In Argentine football, for example, it is quite common for teams to give the referees a present, such as official merchandising or a shirt, as a courtesy. Perhaps it is more common for the souvenirs to be handed out after the meetings. There are countries where it is strictly prohibited, such as Brazil. At the level of competitions under the tutelage of the South American Confederation it also happens, but it is not allowed by protocol.
Therefore, in the face of a complaint such as in this case, It is likely that the sanction will fall on referee Ortega and his teammates in the leadership of the match. The local press cast a cloak of suspicion on the practice. “This can end in a scandal. The referees of the match would have received gifts from the xeneize team. An impartial and transparent investigation is urgently needed,” wrote journalist Jorge Garrett. “Why did the Xeneize leadership give these gifts before the game?” he asked. Sport Bolivia.
“There were a lot of gifts that the Police have seized. The Conmebol regulations are being violated. An expert opinion is being carried out”revealed the president of the Bolivian club, Andres Costain dialogue with radio Mitre, where also He stressed that the operation took place at halftime.
To fuel the controversy, the local goalkeeper Arnaldo Giménez was lapidary with the referee after the defeat: “How can you analyze something that has nothing to do with football. It is a gift, that the referees stop screwing around, that they let the teams called boys compete. I ask the referee what he charged and he doesn’t know how to answer me. It is very obvious that the referee came to screw up the game. There is a sacrifice behind all this. And they don’t let us compete. It’s very sad, because they end up giving him the game.”
“It was a very obvious bias, without dissimulation. If that penalty is not invented, the story could be different “Always Ready coach Eduardo Villegas joined.
* The main actions in La Paz
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