What would (a second) new constitutional draft mean for Chilean football?

What would (a second) new constitutional draft mean for Chilean football?

by Daniel Campos

Editor Chilean Football News

In August this year, heading into the lead-up to Chile's historic constitutional plebiscite that was turned down, football governing body the A.N.F.P. or Asociación Nacional de Fútbol Profesional released a statement to not "use" the national team jersey for political purposes. This was in light of the "Apruebo" or "Approve" campaign where fans of Primera B promotion candidates Magallanes hanging a banner at a match in favour of the "Approve" option.

The match referee denounced the action on the match report, the public limited company that administers Magallanes received threats from the ANFP with a fine.

Universidad de Chile played their clásico or derby against Universidad Católica in late August and there was another "Approve" banner from fans of "La U" and it has shown that football fans have voiced their political opinions where it is known that that has been very well publicised as a no-no, an action that brings consequences to the wallets of individuals and mainly to clubs.

As football fills the media spotlight, the efforts to put a stop to political public showings of opinion has brought division to the country. Had "Approve" won, the prospective new constitution would have in ways been a tool to intervene in a broken industry. The business of football in Chile is rotten with monopolies and of illicit practices.

There is no regulator. External auditing have failed to truly pick on the issue at play. The criminal players hide and know the laws inside and out to trick their way out into impunity. The rotten and crippled game needs neutrality but as the "Rechazo" option won, fans are both hopeful and disenchanted that the current unchanged constitution will continue to outlay the corruption unpunished, and unscathed. The notion is to remain and keep football out of politics. The reality is that football is politics.

When the national team in 1996 was running poor in results, manager Xavier Azkargorta who famously took Bolivia to the USA 1994 World Cup, said "Once a dog is dead, the ire and angst goes away", a phrase that remains penned and permanent in Chilean football history. Collective memory is short-lived and culprits are searched tirelessly for blame. It happens worldwide, where future cabinets in government are pointed the finger. What about social crises and economic downturns? Who are to blame there?

Society and the collective, its people are to blame. For lack of memory, or what not, reading, self-cultivation, respect for diversity of opinions, fanaticism, crime and violent acts. This all paves way for a lack of transparency at management board, commercial and administrative or government levels where little pressure and little knowledge of in this case, how football clubs can be run, make way for legal loopholes of embezzlement and chaos. That is, chaos once these acts are picked up by the media and go public.

The landmark constitutional plebiscite on the 4th of September was a win for democracy with over 15 million eligible Chileans casting their compulsory vote but it marked a crossroads for a country staunch in inequality and disparity. For a country that is football-mad but prefer to stay home rather attend matches.

For a country that has witnessed such economic growth inequality and disparity, much the same could be said about its most popular sport, football. Up until 2015, the senior men’s national team had not won a single major international tournament in 99 years until lifting the Copa América over Argentina on penalties in the final as hosts. As the oldest continental tournament in world football, this meant Chile earned its spot to the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup held in Russia. All of a sudden the national team won titles with a generation of players compiled from the 2006 Copa Sudamericana campaign under Claudio Borghi with Colo Colo and the 2011-winning Copa Sudamericana side under Jorge Sampaoli at Universidad de Chile plus others who performed well particularly under manager Marcelo Bielsa, by repeating the feat with Juan Antonio Pizzi lifting the Centenary edition of the Copa América Centenario in New Jersey in 2016 once again over Argentina on penalties.

Third place was a common theme. Finishing third in 1962 as World Cup hosts, third in the 1987 U-20 World Cup as hosts and in the U-17 World Cup in Japan in 1993. The women’s U-15 won gold in the Youth Olympics in 2010 in Singapore and that also brought a trailblazing feat for the women’s game. There was also a bronze medal finish in the U-23 Sydney 2000 Olympic Games with a generation that did not transfer through to the senior national team, with the added help of three overage players including World Cup '98 members in goalkeeper Nelson Tapia, defender Pedro Reyes and global superstar goal scorer and icon Iván Zamorano who featured in France two years earlier.

The majority of Chile’s international results lie on moral victories. Under FIFA’s jurisdiction, the governing body is the Federación de Fútbol de Chile (F.F.Ch.) however the acting governing body is the Asociación Nacional de Fútbol Profesional or the A.N.F.P. as a for-profit commercial entity. It is an umbrella or parallel organisation that FIFA still somehow legitimises.

Here is where problems lie and a new (second) future constitutional draft should propose changes to the game. Long, overdue changes and improvements.

There should be a bright future ahead considering the PanAm Games will be hosted in Santiago next year, in 2023 meaning the U23 Olympic cycle goes into full swing for the Paris Games in 2024. The Pan-American Games like all bid-winning sporting events showcases the winning committee’s organisational and managerial skills, its infrastructure and facilities and its sporting culture. At administration level, most sports are showing gradual improvement with its management, transparency, education and personnel, facilities and governance however there are splitting conflicts with jurisdictions. The Chilean Olympic Committee (COCh) in August this year disaffiliated the national hockey federations including roller hockey, kendo and modern pentathlon in a shocking decision.

Shocking indeed where athletes across many sports need funding and donations. Collecting money in the streets, lacking sponsorship deals and where obviously results and performance need to be maintained at elite level, the disparity hurts. Chile is a country where more success lies in tennis rather than football however the comparison is not fully viable.

It was also shocking and embarrassing when FIFA president Gianni Infantino visited Santiago and the ANFP headquarters at Quilín and expressed, in October 2021, his disgust and boredom of the facilities. He felt out of place and wanted to leave and commented it to his close personnel. Journalists present overheard his words.

Football under FIFA and Infantino continues to prohibit government intervention although cries in Congress for an enquiry into where illegal revenue streams from offshore betting agencies reigns and there is little intent for regulation. Revenue streams from ticket sales, television contracts, merchandise pretty much goes under the same bracket and the same holding consortiums with its owners evading taxes.

The state of affairs in the game is as such where the so-called “big three” in the country's football hierarchy shows a clear, shameless, in-your-face hegemony. Since the Chilean corporate law structure approved the privatisation of professional football in 2000 for it to be fully in practice from May of 2005 into “Sociedades Anónimas Deportivas” or public limited sporting companies with its bill passed by the Senate that year, it irrupted under its persistent and untouched neoliberal model. If a timeline was to be drawn up, the administration of the 36 professional clubs are a hit and miss. Good business management are few and far between with the majority experiencing mishandling, shady activities, conflicts of interests in ownership with financial statements hovering in red and somehow with much relief, players and staff are, you go figure, managed to be covered with their respective salaries or wages, insurance and health cover, bonuses and pensions.

Some have filed for bankruptcy, others have ransacked or have been laundered by opportunistic businessmen, and where for instance, Curicó Unido, currently competing in the first division remain owned by its fans as a sporting corporation. Culture is a big factor in the handling of legislation, governance, administration, recruitment, community engagement, junior, youth and senior player development, infrastructure and ultimately results on the pitch. Models work with transparency.

In 1998, the Senate witnessed former President Sebastián Piñera approve a bill initiated under the previous presidency of Ricardo Lagos where political lobbying had a significant influence in the still present chaos surrounding Chilean football. That is, how to generate revenue. When the then-called CDF or Canal del Fútbol was created in 2003 by investors Reinaldo Sánchez - a transport mogul and former president of the ANFP and back at Santiago Wanderers for a second term alongside Jorge Claro, formerly head of Universidad Católica and sold its shares to Atlanta-based TurnerMedia and soon sold once again this time to Miami-based WarnerMedia Latin America, it re-formulated structure models and plenty of hope that the Chilean game would venture to greener pastures.

The larger pieces of the pie are still funnelled to the “big three” clubs. These television dollars are unequally distributed and where centralism remains. Where the major shareholder of Azul Azul S.A. is the Sartor Group that runs giants Universidad de Chile only prioritise financial balances and its major individual shareholders worry about their own pockets shafting aside a club rich in history, a club without a stadium and with little intention to build one. Where results are not going their favour for four straight years with relegation bounding only for last-round jail escapes. “La U” are on the verge of another umpteenth manager - a typical case scenario in the continent with the chopping and changing of short-term managerial stints remain part and parcel. It is impossible to achieve long-term results with sacking and high staff turnovers.

The one club that does consistently well is Universidad Católica where its wealthy neighbourhood the club is headquartered will see a refurbishment with its San Carlos de Apoquindo training complex and main stadium to be rebuilt with environmentally-friendly technology and design. Its renowned conservative governance at management level and its club ethos shows an economic surplus for the present and long-term plans along with four league titles from 2018 to 2021. A few decisions by the board headed by former goalkeeper José María Buljubasich that bordered austerity measures raised eyebrows especially in the transfer market, with fans and the ever-critical media although his intentions were clear: season 2022 had a particular writing on the wall, the selling of naming rights for its new reconstructed stadium.

Colo Colo, headed under a parallel stream by its social and sporting corporation and its private-owned public listed management company Blanco y Negro (S.A.) has had its ups and downs where chaos were the bills spilled showing the country mismanagement in terms of bad results on the field, a lack of retention in talent, high turnover of coaching staff, violence at home matches, and unpaid wages that were immediately tackled, although with exorbitant loans still to pay. In 2020, the club almost got relegated in Talca against Universidad de Concepción had it not been by a winner scored by Argentinian winger Pablo Solari who recently got sold to giants River Plate as Chile’s most popular club is enjoying a steady league table lead under Argentinian-Bolivian international manager Gustavo Quinteros.

Chilean clubs continue to struggle at international continental competitions, in both the Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana.

The players’ union (S.I.F.U.P.) has also had its fair share of issues with the professional football body ANFP, with its credibility now at its lowest and a clean-up in desperate need. Deputy Congressman Jaime Mulet has signed and pushed petitions for an enquiry however a future constitution will most definitely decide when this shall be conducted. In the lead-up to the September 4 plebiscite, the ANFP released a statement declaring its disapproval of using the national team jersey for political causes - in reference to the “Apruebo” campaign altering the Adidas logo and also regarding second-tier league leaders Magallanes whose fans displayed a banner in favour of the same constitutional faction as mentioned earlier but the cynicism displayed years earlier when Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro posed with extreme right-wing candidate José Antonio Kast with a national team jersey for a photo and no comment was made, making it all very laughable and self-explanatory. There was altering of a badge or emblem however posing with national team jerseys for political purposes is not allowed and is frowned upon. So why can only one side of the political spectrum get away with critics and the other be bombarded? Why isn't it fair for all sides?

Can Chilean football be cleansed? Can the sports incorporated model of Curicó Unido be the exemplary move for everybody else? When will a regulatory code of conduct and a set of new legislative laws be passed for player and club agents to remain in the game but in more fairer terms? A surrender of this monopoly and of rotten, century-old corrupt practices must be put to an end, or kept to a minimum at the very least.

When qualification to World Cups continue to fail, revenue streams slack off and the dependance on television contracts makes it all too difficult in pressures to make up for the expenses. That is the problem, there are far too many expenses in the game and that is not being transferred in real terms on the pitch.