SUBSCRIBERS EXCLUSIVE
Claudio Tapia and Aníbal Fernández argued when the players left the caravan by bus and began to board the helicopters that took them to Ezeiza.
“You can’t continue, let them go to the helicopters.” Hannibal Fernandez, Minister of National Security, had already made the decision to divert the caravan carrying the world champions from the Riccheri Highway and General Paz Avenue to the Juan Ángel Pirker Federal Police Cadet School. The people had exceeded any forecast and, a few minutes before, a man had thrown himself from a bridge towards the bus where the players were.
When the caravan deviated from Riccheri, Claudio Tapiathe president of the AFA, decided to react and called from his cell phone one of the Buenos Aires officials who were monitoring the operation from the Situation Room of the Ministry of City Security. to the screamsTapia reproached Horacio Rodríguez Larreta’s man: “Listen to me, they are taking us to your police school. The festivities are shitting me“, Tapia shouted with a voice that at times was difficult to understand, perhaps because of the accumulated fatigue, the emotion of victory and the jars of fernet with coke that had been circulating for hours on the bus between the players and the leaders. Finally, After several attempts, Tapia got to understand that this police school, which is located within the Federal Capital, belongs to the National State and not to the Buenos Aires.
Emboldened by the information, he dialed Fernández’s number. “They cut off the possibility of continuing to celebrate. they shit us we want to continue“, Tapia shouted again, also with a voice that, according to the witnesses of the conversation, hinted at the hours of chained celebration.
The Minister of Security had a message on his phone from the Chief of the Federal Police who told him from the Pirker school grounds: “Messi has already gone up to the H17, Di María went up behind, De Paul went up behind”. With this information, Fernández decided to respond to Tapia, also shouting: “But listen to me, you say that I cut off the celebrations and the players they are already above the helicopters. The one who wants to continue celebrating is you.” The exchange of insults ended when the minister cut off the phonein an episode that marked the extent to which the relationship between the Government and the AFA had broken.
Until then, Aníbal Fernández was the highest-ranking government official who He had been negotiating with Tapia the operation for the return of the champions. The minister had occupied that role because Alberto Fernández does not have any dialogue with Tapia. They accuse each other of almost everything: the President maintains in private that he considers Tapia a criminal and the head of the AFA says that Fernández sent the General Inspection of Justice to the Association to harass him and blames him for having resigned the Copa América into the hands of from Brazil.
Aníbal had been speaking with the AFA since Monday to define the final route of the bus. This Tuesday, even, Fernández went to the AFA premises in Ezeiza at 7 in the morning. He made time until 9, when Tapia took care of him and they finished drawing the route.
The minister even suggested not entering the Obelisk area with the buses due to the security problems that this would bring and proposed to the AFA that they go to the Government House, which would be ready to wait for them. The promise that Fernández transferred was that the players could be shown without any politician on view on the historic balcony of the Casa Rosada. “Only the players and the coaching staff will be there,” said Fernández. To reinforce that promise, the President remained all morning and afternoon in the Quinta de Olivos, well separated from the champions. They had prepared a catering, decorations with flags and a special security operation.
Players they did not accept the invitation, although there was some who thought that it would not be bad to go to the balcony as were the champions of the first two cups. As the refusal won and the possibility of the bus circulating through the crowd until it reached the Obelisk was already ruled out, Tapia proposed that the players salute from the “loop” that connects the 25 de Mayo Highway. The invasion of the highway that occurred after noon also wrecked that possibility.
At that hour, with millions of people in the streets for a long time in a mobilization unknown in Argentine history, the plan for the players to greet the people began to unravel, as happens with the foam of the fernet when the celebrations are prolonged. .