Maratea’s collection to save Independiente: what it has collected so far, the lost tender with the dollar and an unexpected event

On April 27, in a press conference held at the Libertadores de América stadium and with great media attention, Santiago Maratea appeared in front of fans of Independent with an almighty promise: to save the club. Three weeks later, the influencer cobbled together the pseudonym Maratearrojo Some 800 million pesos, quoted in the official dollar, yield more than three million dollars. In a country with frequent currency runs, in 21 days the value of the foreign currency has lost 13 pesos and the trustee has raised an issue about the institution’s most important debt: the one it owes to América de México for Cecilio Dominguez’s pass .

“The object of this trust will be to pay the most important debts, which exceed 20,000,000 dollars”announced Maratea during that presentation, where he said he learned of the club’s problems through his friend Juan Marconi, vice president of Independiente. Before the end of that press conference at the CBU there were 74 million pesos and after 24 hours, 463.

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The growth of the collection has been exponential and unstoppable at the beginning: as of April 28, it had collected 500 million pesos. “Around the eve of the match against Belgrano at home on the Independiente field, around that date (Editor’s note: April 30) we are already halfway through the collection”, enthused the influencer. It wasn’t like that, but the number was not negligible on May 1st, when he announced on his social networks that they had already met 600 million pesosalmost double that of the first day.

The reports were not as frequent the following week, nor were they as propitious as Maratea dreamed, who had predicted that April 27 that “in 10 or 15 days” more than 20 million dollars could be raised. “If everything goes very badly in one month, if everything goes badly in five weeks”he had predicted.

The latest update arrived on May 15 with a screenshot of Mercado Pago indicating this $764,280,985. The same day, the nation’s economy minister, Sergio Massa, announced new measuresamong these the one that spoke of a greater intervention by the Central Bank (BCRA) in the foreign exchange market, together with the administration of the slippage rate of the official dollar.

In the 13 days between these three-week harvests, the official dollar rose 13 pesos, from the $228.50 for which each dollar was sold on April 27 to the $241.50 that the BNA reflected on May 18.

How much has Maratea lost in this time? Taking into account the latest collection update with day one and May 15th prices ($240) the loss would be $160,270.45.

Despite this, the anticipation is great after a raise an average of 38 million pesos a day.

In an exchange with a Twitter user who criticized him, Maratea justified himself: “This is very good. Ten million a day at worst, do you think this will stop it? On a bad day, 10 million pesos comes. Of course it won’t stop. Sooner or later it will reach one billion pesos. He will leave us only 300 million pesos before paying the total debt with América de México, which is a debt that has existed for 4 years and which inhibits the club.”

Without official information, it is estimated that three days after the last figure reported by the influencer, and with exponential growth of 10 million pesos per day, the collection is around 800 million dollars three weeks later.

Maratea and an unexpected event

Independiente’s debt to América de México for the transfer of Cecilio Domínguez is the most important and the one that, if cancelled, will get him out of inhibition.

After four years, the amount rises to $5,700,000, which at the official exchange rate of the day comes to more than one thousand three hundred million pesos ($1,376,550,000). However, in a recent interview with the F90 program (ESPN), Maratea has raised a situation that has opened doubts.

“America’s debt was actually $3,200,000. Teams can access the official dollar to buy and sell players. But if you owe interest or a fine for not paying on time, then you can’t pay the official dollar, you have to do it to the MEP. This debt of Independiente has an annual interest of 10% since 2019, to which 40% has already been added, plus a fine of $800,000,” said the influencer.

The analysis of a 30-year-old is worryingas there is a surge in the financial dollar and the gap between the official and the MEP reached 103.4% this Thursday: while the first rose by only 50 cents to 241.50 dollars, the other exceeded the 472 pesos.

“Careful, maybe I had an idea,” Maratea slipped on Wednesday. Independiente fans from abroad and contributing dollars can pay part of the debt and those contributing from Argentina pay the part we can access the official value. We are close to reaching 800 million. And with that amount you are already close to paying the part of the debt that can be paid at the official dollar price”.

There is something Maratea has not taken into account in his story and is that, although he is the trustee, the one who pays the debt to América de México is independent and like a club has access to official dollars, so they should not go out looking for greenbacks in the financial market. Thus, the USD 5,700,000 would not have to be split between the USD 3,200,000 original debt to the official and the rest (USD 2,500,000) to the MEP, which would double the interest in pesos.