Argentina’s president-to-be Mauricio Macri oversaw a golden age for soccer team Boca Juniors as club chairman, which catapulted him into a political career to the top.
“He did well at Boca and he did a good job as mayor of Buenos Aires, so we trust him. We know he will be a good president,” said one fan, Diego Bertoni, a 44-year-old shopkeeper in central Buenos Aires.
At the club’s stadium, known as La Bombonera, in the northern La Boca district of Buenos Aires, painted in the team’s yellow-and-blue colors, fans milled around in the Museum of Boca Passion and its gift shop.
Photo: Bloomberg
This was the hallowed spot where the legends of players such as Diego Maradona were born.
It was also the place that turned the conservative Macri, 56, from a successful businessman into a soccer executive and eventually a politician.
He built La Bombonera’s VIP stands and a training center.
Macri set up an investment fund to finance the buying of players.
His election win on Sunday heralded the end of 12 years of leftist government in Argentina.
It was just a month ago that few people expected Macri to beat the electoral machine of his rival Daniel Scioli.
“Football always has something to do with it,” said die-hard Boca fan Ezequiel Lobo, 25, near La Bombonera. “It has an influence.”
“Being chairman of Boca is quite a thing. He made it more transparent and reorganized the club. He managed it well,” said Mariano Aguas, a political scientist at the universities of Palermo and La Matanza.
Macri himself once said: “I wanted to be Boca’s No. 9.”
Instead, he led in the boardroom. He was chairman of the club from 1995 to 2007, seeing them win 17 titles, including 11 international ones.
“What I managed to do with Boca showed me that I had the ability,” said Macri, who once led companies founded by his father, Franco. “It showed me I could be a leader without depending on him.”
After voting on Sunday, Macri was photographed playing soccer himself with friends, including Boca coach Rodolfo Arruabarrena. The previous day, he played paddle with another former Boca star, Martin Palermo.
Macri is due to take office on Dec. 10.
The narrow margin by which he won the vote — less than three percent — reflected divisions in a nation with a history of class tensions.
For some fans in the team’s working-class neighborhood of La Boca, that was not enough to make them vote for the businessman.
“For me the fact he won with Boca has nothing to do with it,” said Claudia Almarante, 22, near the stadium.
“A lot of Boca fans may have voted for him, but others don’t like him at all,” she said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but