Javier Cantero: “Politics, justice, the football environment, everyone sees the negotiations and everyone ignores it”

Javier Cantero needs to leave a certificate that Independent “went to B” because of her. He does not share the responsibility with his predecessor July comparedadministrator of a percentage of that average of three campaigns which forced, for the first time in history, the Red He will play in the second division of Argentine football. Is strict with the dates to point out that the management of Hugo Moiano he did not return his First Division status but that was the end of his, which he led until his resignation. The mandate has ended Claudius Keblaitis, his deputy, who took charge of the last eight matches of the B Nacional. The trade unionist arrived and the team was ready to return to play in Primera A.

Cantero is the one with the chairs in the assembly, multiplied live by television and radio channels. thrill it was not fashionable. It’s Planter, as he called him Little Alvarez the leader of a group of people who perceive themselves as Los Diablos Rojos, without the figure of a rock association or party that brings them together and that some union under the colloquial figure of barra brava or fan characterizes. It was the main enemy of him when the leader denounced with evidence before the justice that Álvarez received between $30,000 and $40,000 during his administration monthly by the club. You tell it in detail in a novel (“Against the system, the dark side of football, 2014, Hojas del Sur publishing house) in which Victor Abascal -his alter ego- denounces alcides for the same.

For another reason, the justice investigated an illegal association between the leader of Los Diablos Rojos and Pablo Moyano -later fired- who would begin to destabilize Cantero’s leadership. Álvarez admitted receiving money from the trade unionist and later, together with his father Hugo and the general secretary of the Maldonado club, when they managed Independiente. In 2019 the board of directors decided to expel Cantero from the institution for being the “relegation chairman”. The situation which is kept spotless under the management of Fabiano Doman. His case is in court.

-Why do you think they expel you so long after your retirement from football?

-I think they were scared… in general the Moyanos are quite strange people. They couldn’t figure out what went wrong and I left… maybe they thought I could go back to politics at the club. I left a few months earlier because, I am convinced, if I had stayed we would not have promoted.

-How come?

-We had a bad start, then we got to the top positions and at one point when there were a few dates left we started losing and they sent me messages. Baby Álvarez, Oyarbide, they came to my house and surrounded it. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was in Misiones and my wife called me crying that they had surrounded the house. I was alone with my daughter and I away. So I decided to quit. And we go up more calmly.

-In his novel, Abascal described the days as depressive landscape scenes and the nights as hells. When did you stop feeling this way?

It was a transition. I am a believing Catholic. I have a divine wife, very good children, for a reason they came out like that, it certainly had a lot of influence on it. Later some things were fixed: people realized that it wasn’t ‘so-so’ as they said. I suffered a lot, I assimilated it, religion had its values ​​to cheer me up. And the family. Since it’s such a big club, what happened to me had to be worse… I had a good time. They never said anything to me on the street. They never called me “thief”. Once or twice they yelled at me that I was going to the B… but it must have been someone from another club. Play a lot of time. People out there thought they couldn’t go out on the street. That wasn’t the case, thank God. And time went on and there were numbers appearing that were being published and people were finding out what it was like.

-Like what?

-I saw in a publication the other day that a racing leader said they spent values ​​on two or three departments to get us down. Racing went backwards in a game, I reported them and nothing happened. What happened? Anything.

-Not with the one who documented the money from the club to the bar?

-I presented before the courts, in writing, what the bar was taking. Nobody moved a file. The Justice of Avellaneda: a disaster. I am bad, because there must also be good people.

-It’s “the system” of the novel…

-Politics, justice, the football environment, everyone sees football negotiations and everyone pretends to be stupid, that’s right, I’ve lived it. The Police, (said that) they gave you 1300 (cash) for the party and 400 arrived. We put in some notaries and they had to return the money for the difference. It’s not like it was left for next time, they gave us our money back. And that comes at a cost. Maybe I’ve gotten to a place where I shouldn’t have. I have a duality there, because I think it’s a good thing that I put myself on the line: but look what happened to me.

-Why was there no contagion effect of the Cantero method?

-I was going to answer you definitively, but no. Maybe because some realized that if they did, the same thing would happen to them that happened to me. Could be. But in general, because they didn’t want to do it. They wanted to keep a player’s pass, change cars… I won’t even use euphemisms. I didn’t work while I was president. He had a broken car and they had fancy cars. When you had to borrow money from the AFA, they all did, there were some that paid off quickly and some that cost more and you had to go cry. How come? Because there was a take and take.

-Today the “system” has other conditions, the right of admission is a reality that is not controlled by the clubs, but by the State. Do you think your management scenario would have been different if it had happened earlier?

-When I signed the right of admission to the Independiente court at Boca barra brava, Angelici arrived (then also president Daniel) and when I went to greet him he treated me like shit. At that moment I understood that the leaders not only pretended to be distracted, but also supported, called… there are also some judges who are still working politically on these things…

-That’s why, with a right of admission like today, wouldn’t the weight of that problem have been removed?

-You say that a barrabrava doesn’t enter?

– Presumably not.

-Haha, the guess is good…

– Believe?

-Obviously. In recent days, a photo of the bar was seen while she was eating a barbecue at the restaurant. I don’t think she would have relieved me at all. The system is the same. The difference is that now there is women’s football, which was incipient before, the football fields are better. That environment is exactly the same. There were candidates for governors and presidents who went to the La Plata stadium and put up flags with their names in the bars. Selling choripane on the street is bullshit, if you will: 30,000, 40,000 dollars a month they got.

–The choripane thing now sounds minor…

I’m not very flexible. In the environment, out there you don’t steal but look the other way, right? I have this problem: it is or it is not. I have to realize that I have to be resilient, to identify things that shouldn’t be done, but aren’t that serious. I’ve never psychoanalyzed myself, but I think it would have done me good.

-With that elasticity, do you think you could have passed the presidency any other way?

-Yup. I had a lot of problems in the AFA. There were four or five, “the right hands of Grondona”, who certainly don’t support me. In meetings he said what he thought. In some cases I fought badly. The man from Colón de Santa Fe, (German) Lerche, told me: Javier will do badly. And he was right, he went wrong. I can’t deny it. However, the feeling he gives me is that it was a system and it was Julio (Grondona) who managed it. When I took office as president, (Julio) Comparada accompanied me to the AFA to introduce me to Grondona and when I entered his office, the first thing he said to me was: “Look, you didn’t beat anyone, huh”. Instead of saying “congratulations”, he marked the field for me.

-How do you think, in your experience, that the “barras bravas problem” is solved?

It’s my contradiction. What happens in Europe, which I don’t like because everything is very orderly, a Russian appears and buys clubs. I think we are going there. Private security and that the police are where they need to be, not in the field. I understand that not all Carabinieri are like this, but here we have policemen who are also thieves or murderers. I think there will be a settling: my kids are smarter than me, and my grandkids will definitely be smarter than my kids. I think they will remember the barra bravo as something of the past.

-But the Russian tycoon will find the same system…

-What happens is that when the Russian is the owner, he is the owner. He will assume what he must assume.

– He won’t be able to because the law prevents private security in stadiums…

-The future is that: to remove the Police from the field, because this is part of the problem. We will need to train them and pay those of the yellow champions better. I don’t like the idea of ​​Russian, huh. I prefer partners to choose their representatives.

-So you think joint stock companies are the solution?

-I don’t want corporations, but I think the other system, with bosses sharing and distributing, there is no other system possible. I went in (driving) in the same little car that I came out of and I was laughing out loud. I didn’t respect them. In fact, they were laughing their heads off at me.

Did you regret entering?

-No, life is a thread, a path. You can’t go back. In that period I did it, I enjoyed the victory, I got to know football, it went badly, I had health problems. They always ask me. I wouldn’t do it again, but life is a journey. What is clear is that with the knowledge I have now I would do other things. I won’t be stupid enough to hit my head against the wall twice, but I don’t regret it.