the match between Gymnastics and Fencing La Plata Y Mouth showed the worst side of Argentine football. One fan died and at least ten people were injured. One is Ferdinando RiveroTyC Sports cameraman, who was hit three times by a rubber bullet while filming cops repressing fans struggling to enter the pitch when the doors were already closed.
It happened after the members of the operation had already thrown tear gas which, aided by the wind, entered the field and forced referee Hernán Mastrángelo to suspend the game for lack of guarantees when only nine minutes of the last were played. match. the 23rd date of the Professional Soccer League.
“He saw me and threw me, I was next to him,” Rivero said in the High Pressure (TyC Sports) program about the attitude of the policeman who pointed at him and shot him at close range.
And he detailed: “I was recording. They were cracking down and a policeman turned around and shot me three rubber bullets in the groin. He still hurts and burns, “he said.
“You couldn’t breathe. We got into the truck. Your throat and eyes kill you, “he continued.
TyC Sports reporter Matías Pellicioni also said that when they left the pitch they rescued several fans who asked to be assisted because they could not breathe.
Chronicle of a night of terror
The dead fan is César Gustavo “Lolo” Regueiro, who, according to Buenos Aires Security Minister Sergio Berni, “died as he left the stadium of cardiac arrest”.
Berni remarked that “the responsibility for the incident falls entirely on the company organizing the show”, while the head of Apevide, Eduardo Aparicio, after having stated that “for now the game will no longer be played”, delimited the responsibilities in the police action “because there were like 10,000 people outside the stadium when the doors were already closed.
The president of Gimnasia, Gabriel Pellegrino, instead assured that he had to prove “that the stadium was authorized for 30,000 people. We sold 3,254 tickets out of the 4,300 that were sent to us since the others were registered and it is the police who determine the number of people. entering “.
“People wanted to enter with their cards in hand and we saw empty stalls. Those who closed the doors were the security organs, the police and the Aprevide,” said Pellegrino.
The mayor of La Plata, Julio Garro, appreciated for his part that the Gymnastics “has no responsibility for what happened”, while verifying that “more than one hundred people were treated by the SAME ambulances”.
Meanwhile, referee Mastrángelo said he had suspended the game “at Aprevide’s request” and that “he had never experienced such a situation”.
Then came the signs of repudiation of the AFA and condolences for the death of the Boca Juniors gym fan, whose coach, Hugo Ibarra, complained that “people came to see a show and it all ended in worst of ways “.
A probable ticket sale caused these events when many fans and gymnastics buddies, with their tickets in hand, tried to enter the Carmelo Zerillo stadium when its facilities were already full.
Then the authorities started closing the access doors and this caused the desperation of the fans who wanted to enter because they had paid for the tickets, so the police started containing them with rubber bullets and tear gas.
This lasted more than half an hour and a girl apparently assaulted by the police provoked the reaction of fans and members who brandished their cards.
The closing of the access doors took place at 20:45, that is 45 minutes before the start of this fundamental match in the fight for the title of Professional League for both teams.
And when the police crackdown happened, tear gas entered the playing field in the form of a bright white cloud, passing through the motley crowd that immediately began to suffer the consequences of the smoke.
First it was the fans and then the members of the substitutes’ bench who started covering their faces and these reactions meant that, for example, the Boca manager, Hugo Ibarra, was the first to ask referee Mastrángelo to stop the game because the level The affection in his eyes blocked his sight.
This led to gymnastics coach, Néstor Gorosito, to do the same, and these actions were extended to the players themselves.
Mastrangelo then established that the players and their technical staff go to the locker room, which they did immediately, while at the same time desperation conquered the stands.
The fans in the stands, the exit doors being closed, found the only possible escape on the playing field and hundreds of them jumped onto the pitch from the perimeter fences.
At that moment it was possible to observe the Boca captain, Marcos Rojo, identified with his classic rival, Estudiantes, who tries to help many “triperos” fans to take refuge in the access tunnel to the changing rooms.
Meanwhile, shots were still heard from outside the stadium and there was no calm, neither outside nor inside, until the authorities had the good sense to start opening the doors so that the fans inside could leave the pitch, since those from the outside finally they had been missing.
After an hour of uncertainty, bewilderment and violence, the stands emptied, a couple of hundred fans were scared inside the playing field, but now with more calm, and slowly everything was emptying.
As empty as football itself (they went 0 to 0), as violence itself, and as the lack of organization causes nothing more and nothing less than the very life of everyone who was on the gymnastics pitch tonight. .
With information from Telam
Source: Clarin
