I have good and bad language days. There are days when I come bouncing back home, after a string of functional conversations, compliments on my accent, and questions about where I learned. Other days I come home quietly, hoping that my hosts won’t come out to greet me and reveal my truly dysfunctional Spanish; days when little kids have tricked me into saying dumb things, friends have laughed at my mistakes, or, at the very worst, someone has given up on speech all together, resorting to mute gestures in order to communicate with the dumb Yankee.
The most welcome and shocking of compliments is when someone mistakes me for a local. It never happens with anyone who has spoken to me very long (save once, with a Japanese volunteer, his own Spanish still in fledgling stages, who exclaimed, fully in earnest and with an adorably stereotypical accent, “You’re NOT Paraguayan!!??”). I am always flattered and thrilled by these mix-ups, rare as they are. They let me know that one day, maybe, I might actually speak this language well.
And then there is the other side to appearing local, the appearance part. A Peruvian friend, himself conspicuously dark by Paraguayan standards, once told me “you’re accent is OK but no local will ever think you’re Paraguayan because of your, ah, complexion.” Still, last weekend, watching the Paraguay-Colombia World Cup Qualifier in a hotel lobby, an Ecuadorian guest told me “you seem like a local.” “It’s true,” an Argentinean agreed, “how long have you been in Spanish-speaking countries?” Ironically, I misunderstood the question. But the Ecuadorian wasn’t talking about my Spanish, I had barely spoken to him before his comment. Maybe it was the red and white shirt I was wearing, sporting my support for the national team. Or maybe it was that fact that I had hardly moved from beside the grill, helping to prepare Paraguay-style meat to celebrate the game.
At a game on Sunday, several people rattled off paragraphs of Guaraní to me, obviously assuming I was Paraguayan. Later, as opposing hinchadas waged a rock-throwing battle for control of the main exit to the stadium, I chatted with an older guy who had chosen to hide behind the same wall. “I hope they arrest them all,” he said, “I have to drive out through that door, I can’t go the back way, and I’m afraid their going to break my windows.” Then he said a few things in Guaraní, at which I smiled (apparently inappropriately). “Oh, you must not be Paraguayan,” he realized. The police came and arrested some members of the smaller hinchada, escorting the rest out of the stadium. The officer in command explained that the fans of the opposing fans were too numerous to arrest but that they were waiting for buses and would go home soon.
I waited 20 minutes and walked out to catch a bus with the last of the trouble-making fans, now more tired, less drunk, and significantly calmer. I took three buses to get home, finally getting off a few blocks too late in my still unfamiliar neighborhood. Walking home I stopped at a gas station store to buy a hot dog. Actually, I bought two, my gluttony revealing to all the Paraguayans in the room that I come from the country of great portions. I sat down to eat, watching the Paraguayan soccer wrap-up on the store’s T.V.
Two bites into my second hot dog, a little kid, probably about 8, sat down next to me, eyes fixated on the highlight reel in front of us. We watched in silence for a few minutes before, my he looked up and said “Cerro has 18 points now, right? That means we might have a chance.” “Ah you’re a Cerrista,” I said, “and do you know how the Luque game came out today?” “1-0, Luque won,” he responded. “Oh, must have been a good game.” He misunderstood, “Oh so you’re Luqueño, where do you live?” “Well I live just across the street,” I replied, “but I’m neutral.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m neutral, I don’t have a club.”
“Oh, I get it, you’re Brazilian!” he explained, his face lighting up with understanding.
“Well, I’m not Paraguayan, but I’m not from Brazil either.”
“Where are you from?”
“Guess”
“Argentina,” I shook my head, “Uruguay…Chile…Bolivia,” and he seemed to have run out of ideas.
“I’m from the U.S.” I gave in.
“So that’s why,” he said. And he looked at me with wonder. Too young to be judging by my language abilities, he had probably just never met anyone from so far away.
“Do they eat meat there?” he asked, wide-eyed. “What about yucca?”
“Not really.”
“Seriously, they don’t? That’s so odd”
Brazilians are weird, which explains their lack of Paraguayan club preference. They are, however, at least sensible enough to eat normal food. North Americans are downright alien. My new friend could pardon my accent, in fact he may not even have noticed it. He could pardon my club soccer neutrality, if it was because I was a Brazileiro. But to not eat yucca, well…“don’t you get hungry?” An exotic bunch we are.
martes, 21 de octubre de 2008
martes, 14 de octubre de 2008
Names
I was cooking fish with Arnaldo, my Club Guaraní contact, when Adolfo Trotte, famous boss of the Club Olimpia hinchada, finally returned my phone call. A couple of days before, I had gone to Club Olimpia looking for a friendly employee who had offered to introduce me to hinchas. “Julio’s on vacation,” said the man who works the refreshments counter. He couldn’t tell me when, exactly, Julio was expected back. “Maybe you can help me then,” I said, “Julio told me he knew members of the ‘barra’ and I want to interview them for my study.” “Maybe I can help you then, maybe I can help,” said ‘refreshments counter man’ (he and others have told me his name approximately 37 times but I still haven’t managed to learn it). “Come back on Friday at six and I’ll introduce you to one of the bosses of Olimpia’s barra.” I thanked ‘refreshments counter man’ and headed back home.
When I arrived on Friday, I ran into another friend (whose name I have also not been able to retain, but who I identify by his ‘floppy hair’) was sitting by the club entrance talking to a short, solidly built guy with earrings. I said hi and he asked if I was there to play soccer. “No, ah, I’m here to see the guy who works at the refreshments counter. He was going to introduce me to some friends of his from the barra.” The earringed guy looked away quickly, making me think that he was my promised contact but that he was going to make me go through the motions before he talked to me. “Floppy hair” seemed to agree that the Yankee should work for his priviledges, “Ah, well, there’s your friend,” he said, also neglecting to give me the actual name of ‘refreshment counter man.’ I walked up and said hi, and ‘refreshment counter man’ told me to wait while he went and got his friend. He walked behind me and talked to the earringed man for a few seconds. Then he whistled my attention and motioned for me to come over.
“This is Tony,” he told me, “he can help you.” I introduced myself and gave the elevator speech version of my study. Tony nodded, not meeting my eyes, and said “Ok, I think I can help you.” “I’m not a boss or anything, just a member. I’d talk to you, but I have to ask permission first. If I tell you yes, and then my boss doesn’t like the idea, I could have some trouble. I’ll check with my boss on Sunday at the game and I’ll call you.”
On Wednesday, not having heard anything from Tony, I called him and he said that his boss had agreed to talk to me. I had been hoping for permission to talk to the underlings, more than an invitation to meet the boss. But Paraguayans never cease to surprise me by offering more help that I even ask for, let alone expect. “He never answers his phone if he doesn’t recognize the number so you have to send him a message first saying that you’re my friend, the journalist, and you want to interview him,” Tony explained. “Oh, and his name is ‘Señor Adolfo Trotte,’ make sure you call him that.” Needless to say, I wrote it down.
That afternoon, I sent Mr. Trotte a message and he responded saying he would call me back later. I thanked him profusely, assuming he was used to receiving excessive gratitude. His response was not exactly a ‘you’re welcome’: “fine, but it has it’s price, BROTHER.” I laughed, showing the message to a friend. “I think he’s joking,” I said. “Maybe, we’ll see what he asks for,” came the less-than-reassuring reply.
A couple of days and a few reminder messages later, Mr. Trotte’s called. Wiping onion juice and fish skin off my hands, I answered the call politely: “hello, sir, how are you?” “I’m fine, and you, my Yankee friend?” We exchanged pleasantries before Mr. Trotte abruptly cut us off, “I have to go, hang up now, I’ll call you. Hang up now.” I complied and a few minutes later Mr. Trotte called again, “OK, what can I do for you, my friend, keeping in mind that I am a busy man.” We scheduled an interview for “exactly” 1:15 that afternoon, “don’t come early, please, I won’t be available, but don’t come late, I have things to do.”
Arnaldo and I put a rush on our fish and jogged out to the avenue to catch a bus to Sajonia to meet the boss.
I was running late and Arnaldo told me to be sure I messaged Mr. Trotte, and told me to drop his name while I was at it, saying that they were friends. “I thought Yankees were punctual, what happened? And I don’t know who your friend is, but I’m glad you ate lunch already,” the boss replied. His tone changed immediately after I arrived, apologizing and 5 minutes late. “Five minutes is nothing, come in and sit down.”
Mr. Trotte wore short-cropped, dark hair, accompanied by sunglasses, an open-necked shirt, and a gaudy, gold chain. He sent his wife and daughter to the back room, ordering his son to stay with us to serve Terere and “listen and try learn something.” Mr. Trotte had me explain myself and my project and asked me to list who I had talked to already and recount how I met Tony. Then he reclined in his chair and declared himself “ready to answer any question, anything.” He explained that many fan tactics and most of the songs and cheers come from Argentina but that “we have a few little sons of bitches with good heads for adapting lyrics.” He told me he considered the fans to be the “twelfth player,” their vocal support playing a key role in the game itself. Then he delivered the cliché “this game is played both on the field and off.” “In what sense?” I asked, expecting to hear more about fan backing. “In all senses,” he started, “you know many coaches have paid off the referee, bought opposing goal keepers and defenders. And our best coaches always remembered to bring their own water and food to away games, so that the other side can’t put anything in it.”
Having moved to the darker side of Paraguayan soccer, I decided to ask about fan violence. Trotte told me it was really just an expression of individual and societal problems “bigger than soccer.” He declared that he did not support violence, but, of course, “if someone throws a rock at me, I’m going to defend myself.” He also admitted that “youthful inexperience” may have caused him to think differently about violence earlier in his career. “Age lets you look back on past errors with a new perspective,” he said, solemnly.
Our conversation was interrupted by several phone calls, each of which Mr. Trotte took outside the room, leaving me with his son. Oscar, about 14 years old, was quiet and answered my questions in mono-syllables. He did, however, open his mouth fully to tell me that, “no!”, he had never thought about supporting another team, just to defy his father. I apologized for asking.
Our interview ended with yet another phone call. Mr. Trotte apologized but said that he had to go to a meeting. He offered to talk to me again if I had more questions and to put me in touch with the boss of the barra from Cerro Porteño’s (Olimpia’s biggest rival). “We’re friends,” he said, and was dialing his number before I could even thank him. “He’s not answering but, look, I’m going to meet him right now so why don’t you just come with me.”
We drove across town, to one of Asuncion’s nicer neighborhoods, and met Zoilo Ramírez on a street corner. Mr. Trotte sent me to wait in his car while he and Zoilo spoke for a few minutes. Then a large bald guy joined them and the meeting continued. Once, they were interrupted by a street vendor, who called Zoilo by his first name, shook his hand, and sold him a honey cake. When they finished, Mr. Trotte brought me out of the car and introduced me to Zoilo. The Cerro boss and I conversed but Mr. Trotte did most of the talking. “So you’re not busy are you, Zoilo? Why don’t you take this little son of a bitch with you to your shop so he can interview you? He’s free all day, he doesn’t have any plans” (thankfully, all of this was true for both of us). Almost without speaking to each other, Zoilo and I agreed to go to Mercado 4, where he owns a printing shop, so I could interview him. We bid farewell to the gran Olimpista, Zoilo by saying “good luck, Adolfo, see you next week,” making him the first I had heard address Mr. Trotte by his first name.
We drove to the market in Zoilo’s rickety, old car. On the way, he pointed out various places to me, many of which he named in Guaraní, first, before translating. When we arrived, he offered me Terere and we talked for 45 minutes. He told me about his childhood in the interior and how he was proud of his rural heritage. He is also proud of his club’s long-standing (though disputed) reputation as the most popular, “the people’s team.” He assured me that Cerro still enjoys the majority support of Paraguay’s poor, although he admitted that there were plenty of poor fans of other clubs as well. “We still call ourselves ‘popular,’ and I think we deserve it,” he concluded.
In general, he was quieter, more modest, and more polite than Mr. Trotte. He admitted that he had great respect for Mr. Trotte and that the Olimpia faithful often out-shouted the Cerristas at rivalry matches. Still, he stubbornly claimed that his passion was greater than any Olimpista’s and that Cerristas threw better parties after big wins.
Both Olimpia’s and Cerro’s hinchadas are organized into geographic units, with each local boss in charge of choosing his crew and bringing it to each match. Leaders are generally not assigned specific tasks, except at the very top level where Zoilo and Mr. Trotte are in charge of relations with the club, the press, the government, and each other. Both, Zoilo told me, have received plenty of criticism from those underneath them for being too friendly with each other. He confirmed that many on both sides actually believed that fans of their rival were bad people and not to be trusted. Unlike Mr. Trotte, he was willing to admit those beliefs could cause violence, along with the “broader social issues and violent personalities” at whom the Olimpia boss threw the blame. He confirmed that the “mere colors” of Olimpia could excite violent passions in many of his friends. “It’s irrational,” he said, “it doesn’t make sense, but it’s how the boys are.”
Ironically, Zoilo is both the only hincha I have met who truly embodies the identity of his club and the only one to recognize that that identity is not entirely realistic. His humble roots, quiet demeanor, and populist pride fit perfectly with Cerro’s identity; an identity that for many Cerristas, is perfectly imagined. And yet, he denied that his passion had anything to do with class or economics. “I’m against Olimpia, that’s all. They wear the wrong colors, but we’re not that different. I want to beat them on the field, but off it, I don’t have any problem.”
We finished and Zoilo headed out to a gym in the center of the market. I walked a few blocks toward downtown to buy my ticket for the Paraguayan team’s upcoming match against Peru. It turns out that Zoilo and Mr. Trotte were meeting to coordinate their support for the national side. Though both hinchadas will be present, they will sit at opposite ends of the stadium, with police instructed to separate them from each other, as well as from the Peruvians. And so, even with leaders who call each other by first names and a common national name to chant, Wednesday’s fans will still be called “Cerrista” and “Olimpista,” with all those names’ un-realistic, but very real, implications.
When I arrived on Friday, I ran into another friend (whose name I have also not been able to retain, but who I identify by his ‘floppy hair’) was sitting by the club entrance talking to a short, solidly built guy with earrings. I said hi and he asked if I was there to play soccer. “No, ah, I’m here to see the guy who works at the refreshments counter. He was going to introduce me to some friends of his from the barra.” The earringed guy looked away quickly, making me think that he was my promised contact but that he was going to make me go through the motions before he talked to me. “Floppy hair” seemed to agree that the Yankee should work for his priviledges, “Ah, well, there’s your friend,” he said, also neglecting to give me the actual name of ‘refreshment counter man.’ I walked up and said hi, and ‘refreshment counter man’ told me to wait while he went and got his friend. He walked behind me and talked to the earringed man for a few seconds. Then he whistled my attention and motioned for me to come over.
“This is Tony,” he told me, “he can help you.” I introduced myself and gave the elevator speech version of my study. Tony nodded, not meeting my eyes, and said “Ok, I think I can help you.” “I’m not a boss or anything, just a member. I’d talk to you, but I have to ask permission first. If I tell you yes, and then my boss doesn’t like the idea, I could have some trouble. I’ll check with my boss on Sunday at the game and I’ll call you.”
On Wednesday, not having heard anything from Tony, I called him and he said that his boss had agreed to talk to me. I had been hoping for permission to talk to the underlings, more than an invitation to meet the boss. But Paraguayans never cease to surprise me by offering more help that I even ask for, let alone expect. “He never answers his phone if he doesn’t recognize the number so you have to send him a message first saying that you’re my friend, the journalist, and you want to interview him,” Tony explained. “Oh, and his name is ‘Señor Adolfo Trotte,’ make sure you call him that.” Needless to say, I wrote it down.
That afternoon, I sent Mr. Trotte a message and he responded saying he would call me back later. I thanked him profusely, assuming he was used to receiving excessive gratitude. His response was not exactly a ‘you’re welcome’: “fine, but it has it’s price, BROTHER.” I laughed, showing the message to a friend. “I think he’s joking,” I said. “Maybe, we’ll see what he asks for,” came the less-than-reassuring reply.
A couple of days and a few reminder messages later, Mr. Trotte’s called. Wiping onion juice and fish skin off my hands, I answered the call politely: “hello, sir, how are you?” “I’m fine, and you, my Yankee friend?” We exchanged pleasantries before Mr. Trotte abruptly cut us off, “I have to go, hang up now, I’ll call you. Hang up now.” I complied and a few minutes later Mr. Trotte called again, “OK, what can I do for you, my friend, keeping in mind that I am a busy man.” We scheduled an interview for “exactly” 1:15 that afternoon, “don’t come early, please, I won’t be available, but don’t come late, I have things to do.”
Arnaldo and I put a rush on our fish and jogged out to the avenue to catch a bus to Sajonia to meet the boss.
I was running late and Arnaldo told me to be sure I messaged Mr. Trotte, and told me to drop his name while I was at it, saying that they were friends. “I thought Yankees were punctual, what happened? And I don’t know who your friend is, but I’m glad you ate lunch already,” the boss replied. His tone changed immediately after I arrived, apologizing and 5 minutes late. “Five minutes is nothing, come in and sit down.”
Mr. Trotte wore short-cropped, dark hair, accompanied by sunglasses, an open-necked shirt, and a gaudy, gold chain. He sent his wife and daughter to the back room, ordering his son to stay with us to serve Terere and “listen and try learn something.” Mr. Trotte had me explain myself and my project and asked me to list who I had talked to already and recount how I met Tony. Then he reclined in his chair and declared himself “ready to answer any question, anything.” He explained that many fan tactics and most of the songs and cheers come from Argentina but that “we have a few little sons of bitches with good heads for adapting lyrics.” He told me he considered the fans to be the “twelfth player,” their vocal support playing a key role in the game itself. Then he delivered the cliché “this game is played both on the field and off.” “In what sense?” I asked, expecting to hear more about fan backing. “In all senses,” he started, “you know many coaches have paid off the referee, bought opposing goal keepers and defenders. And our best coaches always remembered to bring their own water and food to away games, so that the other side can’t put anything in it.”
Having moved to the darker side of Paraguayan soccer, I decided to ask about fan violence. Trotte told me it was really just an expression of individual and societal problems “bigger than soccer.” He declared that he did not support violence, but, of course, “if someone throws a rock at me, I’m going to defend myself.” He also admitted that “youthful inexperience” may have caused him to think differently about violence earlier in his career. “Age lets you look back on past errors with a new perspective,” he said, solemnly.
Our conversation was interrupted by several phone calls, each of which Mr. Trotte took outside the room, leaving me with his son. Oscar, about 14 years old, was quiet and answered my questions in mono-syllables. He did, however, open his mouth fully to tell me that, “no!”, he had never thought about supporting another team, just to defy his father. I apologized for asking.
Our interview ended with yet another phone call. Mr. Trotte apologized but said that he had to go to a meeting. He offered to talk to me again if I had more questions and to put me in touch with the boss of the barra from Cerro Porteño’s (Olimpia’s biggest rival). “We’re friends,” he said, and was dialing his number before I could even thank him. “He’s not answering but, look, I’m going to meet him right now so why don’t you just come with me.”
We drove across town, to one of Asuncion’s nicer neighborhoods, and met Zoilo Ramírez on a street corner. Mr. Trotte sent me to wait in his car while he and Zoilo spoke for a few minutes. Then a large bald guy joined them and the meeting continued. Once, they were interrupted by a street vendor, who called Zoilo by his first name, shook his hand, and sold him a honey cake. When they finished, Mr. Trotte brought me out of the car and introduced me to Zoilo. The Cerro boss and I conversed but Mr. Trotte did most of the talking. “So you’re not busy are you, Zoilo? Why don’t you take this little son of a bitch with you to your shop so he can interview you? He’s free all day, he doesn’t have any plans” (thankfully, all of this was true for both of us). Almost without speaking to each other, Zoilo and I agreed to go to Mercado 4, where he owns a printing shop, so I could interview him. We bid farewell to the gran Olimpista, Zoilo by saying “good luck, Adolfo, see you next week,” making him the first I had heard address Mr. Trotte by his first name.
We drove to the market in Zoilo’s rickety, old car. On the way, he pointed out various places to me, many of which he named in Guaraní, first, before translating. When we arrived, he offered me Terere and we talked for 45 minutes. He told me about his childhood in the interior and how he was proud of his rural heritage. He is also proud of his club’s long-standing (though disputed) reputation as the most popular, “the people’s team.” He assured me that Cerro still enjoys the majority support of Paraguay’s poor, although he admitted that there were plenty of poor fans of other clubs as well. “We still call ourselves ‘popular,’ and I think we deserve it,” he concluded.
In general, he was quieter, more modest, and more polite than Mr. Trotte. He admitted that he had great respect for Mr. Trotte and that the Olimpia faithful often out-shouted the Cerristas at rivalry matches. Still, he stubbornly claimed that his passion was greater than any Olimpista’s and that Cerristas threw better parties after big wins.
Both Olimpia’s and Cerro’s hinchadas are organized into geographic units, with each local boss in charge of choosing his crew and bringing it to each match. Leaders are generally not assigned specific tasks, except at the very top level where Zoilo and Mr. Trotte are in charge of relations with the club, the press, the government, and each other. Both, Zoilo told me, have received plenty of criticism from those underneath them for being too friendly with each other. He confirmed that many on both sides actually believed that fans of their rival were bad people and not to be trusted. Unlike Mr. Trotte, he was willing to admit those beliefs could cause violence, along with the “broader social issues and violent personalities” at whom the Olimpia boss threw the blame. He confirmed that the “mere colors” of Olimpia could excite violent passions in many of his friends. “It’s irrational,” he said, “it doesn’t make sense, but it’s how the boys are.”
Ironically, Zoilo is both the only hincha I have met who truly embodies the identity of his club and the only one to recognize that that identity is not entirely realistic. His humble roots, quiet demeanor, and populist pride fit perfectly with Cerro’s identity; an identity that for many Cerristas, is perfectly imagined. And yet, he denied that his passion had anything to do with class or economics. “I’m against Olimpia, that’s all. They wear the wrong colors, but we’re not that different. I want to beat them on the field, but off it, I don’t have any problem.”
We finished and Zoilo headed out to a gym in the center of the market. I walked a few blocks toward downtown to buy my ticket for the Paraguayan team’s upcoming match against Peru. It turns out that Zoilo and Mr. Trotte were meeting to coordinate their support for the national side. Though both hinchadas will be present, they will sit at opposite ends of the stadium, with police instructed to separate them from each other, as well as from the Peruvians. And so, even with leaders who call each other by first names and a common national name to chant, Wednesday’s fans will still be called “Cerrista” and “Olimpista,” with all those names’ un-realistic, but very real, implications.
domingo, 5 de octubre de 2008
We All Know This is a Country of Bribes
“We all know this is a country of bribes.” So started a news story I heard a couple of weeks ago. The anchorwoman was interviewing officials from Paraguayan bus companies, asking about their on-going (and not terribly effective) anti-corruption campaign. Bus drivers here have a simple and efficient method of supplementing their hourly wage. They offer discounts to passengers who return their tickets as they get off the bus so that they can be re-sold. At the end of the day, the driver’s pre-made strip of tickets has more left on it than it should, based on the actual number of passengers, and he takes the difference home.
Paraguayans are used to this. A friend laughingly told me that Paraguay was once ranked the 2nd most corrupt country in the world, but it had recently fallen a few places and “isn’t winning anymore.” The other day, a police officer walked into the lobby of my hotel, said hi to me and a few other guests, and sat by the front desk, obviously waiting for something. Cristian, working reception, rummaged through its safe drawer for a few seconds and then said something to the officer in Guaraní. Next he approached me and asked if I could lend him 50,000 Guaraníes (about $12). I only had 10,000 on me so Cristian jogged across the street to the hotel owner’s to get the other 40,000. He returned and handed it to the cop, who took it, smiled, and walked out.
I figured the exchange had been some sort of payoff but was surprised that it had been so open and public. I asked Cristian why he had paid the officer. “Every couple of weeks we give him a tip,” he answered, “because they don’t pay them enough.” “And if you don’t give him anything?” I asked. “We tip him to avoid trouble,” Cristian responded. “What kind of trouble?” “Well, the police themselves can send thieves. If you don’t pay, they know people who can make trouble. It’s better to just give them their tip.” And, of course, Paraguayan police also accept “special” tips in exchange for especially-arduous work like “forgetting” traffic violations and paying extra attention to “vulnerable” businesses.
Amidst such run-of-the-mill dishonesty and bending-of-rules, soccer could be a haven of honesty, meritocracy, and pure athletic entertainment. But it’s not. At all amateur levels, clubs fake their players’ identity cards so they can play in younger divisions. And even at better-regulated professional level, every season seems to be marred by accusations of referee-buying. Most-recently, Cerro Porteño, following two straight draws characterized by questionable calls and disallowed goals, issued a statement accusing “dark economic and sporting interests” of “obtaining the services of certain referees.” A poll on a popular Paraguay soccer site asks not whether readers think the allegations are true, but only who they think the culprit is.
A majority choose Horacio Cartes, president of Libertad, a large Asunción club widely believed to have purchased its historic season last year. This wasn’t the first time I heard controversial allegations against Libertad. In an interview earlier this week, Arnaldo, a member of Club Guaraní’s “barra” (official group of fan-leaders and hooligans) told me that Libertad exists purely to launder money. I asked around and a few friends told me, in hushed tones as if conveying state secrets, that Cartes is a known Mafioso and drug trafficker. Internet searches didn’t reveal much in the way of evidence for these claims, focusing more on Cartes’ escapades with various South American supermodels. My friends assured me that only a few well-informed people (apparently including everyone I know) is aware of Libertad’s dark secret.
Whether the Cartes rumors are true or not, the fact is that corruption is a regular and largely accepted part of Paraguayan life. And soccer is as important to this society as anything (perhaps excepting beef). So it is really no surprise that the grease-money culture has found its way onto the pitch. But it’s still sad. I really was hoping for the haven of honesty thing.
Paraguayans are used to this. A friend laughingly told me that Paraguay was once ranked the 2nd most corrupt country in the world, but it had recently fallen a few places and “isn’t winning anymore.” The other day, a police officer walked into the lobby of my hotel, said hi to me and a few other guests, and sat by the front desk, obviously waiting for something. Cristian, working reception, rummaged through its safe drawer for a few seconds and then said something to the officer in Guaraní. Next he approached me and asked if I could lend him 50,000 Guaraníes (about $12). I only had 10,000 on me so Cristian jogged across the street to the hotel owner’s to get the other 40,000. He returned and handed it to the cop, who took it, smiled, and walked out.
I figured the exchange had been some sort of payoff but was surprised that it had been so open and public. I asked Cristian why he had paid the officer. “Every couple of weeks we give him a tip,” he answered, “because they don’t pay them enough.” “And if you don’t give him anything?” I asked. “We tip him to avoid trouble,” Cristian responded. “What kind of trouble?” “Well, the police themselves can send thieves. If you don’t pay, they know people who can make trouble. It’s better to just give them their tip.” And, of course, Paraguayan police also accept “special” tips in exchange for especially-arduous work like “forgetting” traffic violations and paying extra attention to “vulnerable” businesses.
Amidst such run-of-the-mill dishonesty and bending-of-rules, soccer could be a haven of honesty, meritocracy, and pure athletic entertainment. But it’s not. At all amateur levels, clubs fake their players’ identity cards so they can play in younger divisions. And even at better-regulated professional level, every season seems to be marred by accusations of referee-buying. Most-recently, Cerro Porteño, following two straight draws characterized by questionable calls and disallowed goals, issued a statement accusing “dark economic and sporting interests” of “obtaining the services of certain referees.” A poll on a popular Paraguay soccer site asks not whether readers think the allegations are true, but only who they think the culprit is.
A majority choose Horacio Cartes, president of Libertad, a large Asunción club widely believed to have purchased its historic season last year. This wasn’t the first time I heard controversial allegations against Libertad. In an interview earlier this week, Arnaldo, a member of Club Guaraní’s “barra” (official group of fan-leaders and hooligans) told me that Libertad exists purely to launder money. I asked around and a few friends told me, in hushed tones as if conveying state secrets, that Cartes is a known Mafioso and drug trafficker. Internet searches didn’t reveal much in the way of evidence for these claims, focusing more on Cartes’ escapades with various South American supermodels. My friends assured me that only a few well-informed people (apparently including everyone I know) is aware of Libertad’s dark secret.
Whether the Cartes rumors are true or not, the fact is that corruption is a regular and largely accepted part of Paraguayan life. And soccer is as important to this society as anything (perhaps excepting beef). So it is really no surprise that the grease-money culture has found its way onto the pitch. But it’s still sad. I really was hoping for the haven of honesty thing.
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