Soccer is nothing more than a reflection of society. And just as a group of people, whose representativeness I question, has blocked more than half the country, another group of people (perhaps the same ones) have stopped practicing the most popular sport in the country. Inadmissible.
These figures of unproven legitimacy have limited the right to mobility while restricting the right to work. They are like the Stasi, the secret police of the German Democratic Republic. In his book Football Against the Enemy, Simon Kuper tells the story of a citizen of communist Germany whose only interest was looking for a window to see Hertha Berliner, a team that remained in the west of the city after the construction of the wall. The only time he could afford to see them was in Poland (also part of the Iron Curtain). But the police, aware of the party, set about returning cars at the border. Authoritarianism also conditions the happiness of the fan.
The character in the story, aware of what would happen, took his mother with him. At the border, he told the policeman, while pointing at her, that she had grown up in Poland and that, just that day, he was taking her to see the house where he grew up. They let him cross. The Stasi, of course, knew about the trip, and according to Kuper’s account, they marked it because of their interest in western teams. He ended up as an enemy of the system, locked in a dungeon every time a foreign team came to play in the GDR. And yet he was lucky. In its report, the Stasi wrote: “The child will not be taken away from his parents.” The son was going to be taken away. For being a fan, for wanting to travel, for wanting to circulate freely. This is the situation today in Colombia.
The Cali vs. Tolima has been postponed six times. Illegal groups, which some call barracks, threatened whoever would dare to disobey them. Footballers cannot work. Because soccer, like any industry in this country, has the right to work. Like many other sectors, it is hijacked. Like so many others, he wants to be able to work. The right to work in Colombia today is nothing more than dead paper. The military dictatorships, those of Chile and Argentina, for example, also limited that right (and much more) to anyone who thought differently. In 1974, on the way to the World Cup, Caszely refused to say hello to Pinochet. Although at that time he was free, his mother had been tortured.
Despite all the atrocities that have happened in the world for more than a hundred years, football does not stop. In Colombia, only narco-terrorism in 1989 and COVID-19 performed such a feat. Now in Colombia, a group of madmen, who only represent themselves, is achieving the unthinkable. They prohibit circulating, they prohibit working, they attack those who do not accompany them. Soccer, a reflection of society, is hijacked. They want to kidnap Colombia.
