Copa Libertadores fans at the Defensores del Chaco stadium in Asuncion, Paraguay. Daniel Piris (EFE)
The Copa Libertadores is burning, and not only because it enters its decisive phase this week and is already on the way to the final on November 4 at the Maracana Stadium. If the most important competition in South America has always been full of stories that move from the terrain of passion to that of violence, this year the Cups – also the South American Cup, the runner-up Conmebol tournament – seem to be played particularly hard in the crater one volcano, on the edge of the lava, not so much on the field but in the stands and in the immediate vicinity of the stadiums.
A guide for the 2023 edition should devote a key chapter to the succession of episodes of racism, fans injured and arrested, clashes between fans and police, allegations of police abuse and stadiums closed by organizers. Although Conmebol declare themselves outside the action at more than 100 meters from the stadiums, there are club leaders who see a possible ban on the visiting crowd on the horizon.
After a week’s break, both tournaments will continue this Tuesday with the quarter-finals. The chaotic round of 16 series, mainly between Argentinian and Brazilian clubs, ended in early August. The old rivalry between the giants of South American and world football reached its peak in the games Fluminense-Argentinos, Corinthians-Newell’s, Estudiantes-Goiás and San Lorenzo-São Paulo, although riots also broke out in Nacional de Montevideo-Boca and Olimpia in Paraguay – Flamengo and a River fan were injured in an isolated case – and unexplained – during their side’s visit to Inter in Porto Alegre.
If Rio de Janeiro is usually an idyllic postcard, this time Argentinos Juniors fans endured an ordeal. First, they were attacked during a raid by Brazilian fans as they, along with other tourists, were touring Copacabana on the morning before the game, Tuesday 8th. “Young Flu, the Fluminense bar, has a close relationship with Vélez fans [rival de Argentinos en su país] and they wanted to “provide their services” to their allies from another country, decodes the Brazilian writer Rodrigo Barneschi, author of “Forasteiros”, a book in which he recounts his experiences as a Palmeiras fan who guides his team inside and outside Brazil accompanied.
Attacks continued throughout the match at the Maracana, this time by the Brazilian police. Alejandro Frasenga, a supporter who fired rubber bullets from two meters away and received blows to the head, was held in the stadium jail along with his wife and one of his children. “Argentinian fans have always been treated badly in Brazil, but now it’s worse and we’re a family, a neighborhood club. When the police officers took me under the stands, it occurred to me: “I’m not counting that.” Later, club leaders and officials from the Argentine consulate arrived and at 4:30 a.m. we regained our freedom,” reconstructed one of the detained fans , who had to remain in Brazil for almost a week anyway, until Monday 14th , when an express decision by the local judiciary allowed him to leave the country.
Frasenga, who has also been charged with racism, denies carrying out the type of aggression, both verbally and verbally. “There is no video proving this allegation, it was fabricated,” he says. The Secretary General of the Argentinos, Alejandro Roncoroni, adds: “Of course I am against racism, but there are cases in which it can also be used by the Brazilian police as a pretext and shield to justify the unlimited repression that is being carried out he exercises.” takes action against the foreign public and thereby violates rights of any kind”. In addition to the fans, those responsible for Argentina in the Maracana also had a hard time: “They cleared the area in the penalty area, it was a man on his own.” We were with women and boys and had to fight against each other. “If this escalation of violence continues, I think it will end with the visitor ban,” predicts Roncoroni.
Not all foreign delegations are aware that after the Vinicius case there was a change in Brazilian law and that the penalties for the crime of racism at sporting events ranged from two to five years in prison. “Until last year, anyone who impersonated a monkey or said ‘black’ to a group of fans in the stands was not jailed because it was considered a ‘racial slur’. Now this kind of demonstration can put this person in jail because it was considered a “racism crime”, contextualizes Bruno Rodrigues, a journalist from São Paulo.
Precisely in São Paulo, two fans of another Argentine team, San Lorenzo, continue to face accusations of racism since the Sudamericana cross against São Paulo on Thursday 10th movements of a monkey and the other made a similar gesture for a few seconds. Both were diverted to Itaí, a maximum-security prison 350 kilometers from São Paulo that is considered the Tower of Babel among the country’s prisons. For this reason, the leaders of San Lorenzo returned to Brazil this week to open a diplomatic path that will lead to the release of the fans who remain incommunicado. Last month, Universitario de Perú fitness coach Sebastián Avellino was detained in the city for 10 days after he simulated a gorilla move in front of Corinthians fans during a Libertadores first-stage game.
San Lorenzo Secretary General Miguel Mastrosimone denounces a spiral of unusual violence. “I’ve been manager of the club for eleven years and nine of those years we’ve taken part in international competitions. The abuse we suffered in San Pablo was something we had never experienced before. “The leaders and families of the players who were in the box were spat on, threw ice at us and filmed us all the time to look for a reaction,” he says. Alarmed by the experiences of other visiting teams in Brazil, the San Lorenzo leadership asked the Argentine consulate to mediate in São Paulo police to escort the fans to the stadium. This measure was complied with, but was not enough to prevent another chaotic night already in Morumbí.
The day before, Wednesday 9th, Estudiantes fans filed complaints about the South American during their visit to Goiás, in the geographic center of Brazil. A supporter of the Argentine club, Mayra Villarreal, published on her social networks that she was mistreated by the local police: “You touched our soul. They forced us to undress and show that we had nothing. They screamed in our ears and grabbed our necks.”
Of course, violence doesn’t only happen in Brazilian stadiums, nor does Argentina supporters only play the role of victims, although Boca fans were initially ambushed in the streets of Montevideo by Nacional fans and then beaten up at the entrance to the stadium for Wednesday’s first-leg crossing, The 2. For the second leg at the Bombonera on Wednesday 9th, the Argentine police recruited 1,150 soldiers, the same ones deployed in a Super Classic against River. Fresh in memory was the open battle fought by Boca and Colo-Colo fans on June 6 in the streets surrounding the stadium in Buenos Aires at the end of the first stage crossing.
The escalation of violence was repeated in almost all round of 16 games. At Newell’s-Corinthians on Tuesday, August 8, as part of the Sudamericana, fans of the Rosario team were caught in an avalanche when their own club’s Barrabravas opened a gate at the Marcelo Bielsa stadium to go in search of Brazilian fans close. Crushed among themselves and in danger of suffocation when moving to the new grandstand, the Argentines’ own reaction prevented what could have turned into a tragedy. Meanwhile, every time they visit Argentine stadiums, fans from Brazil, Chile and elsewhere burn or tear up 1,000-peso bills — the highest circulation in the country — as a provocation or as a mockery of their coin’s declining value.
Conmebol, meanwhile, claims that incidents occurring outside the stadiums, from the security perimeter located 100 meters from the entrances, are beyond the control of the organizers and are in line with the public order of each city. The Asunción-based club are particularly harsh on the use of firecrackers – in 2013 a flare thrown by a Corinthians fan killed a supporter from San José de Oruro, Bolivia – and racist language.
While River had to accept the closure of half of one of the Monumental stands due to racist gestures in the round of 16, Conmebol also closed two areas of the Colo-Colo stadium in the first phase due to the incidents against Monagas from Venezuela. “Every country has problems. This year it happened to us with the Peruvian police who, out of nowhere and for no reason, started beating us up,” recalls Yamila Milla, a River fan, of the game her team played in Lima in May in the first phase Sporting Cristal played the Libertadores as Argentinian fans were covered in blood mid-game, another postcard of a historically hot cup but rarely, if ever, like this year.
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