LETTER FROM BUENOS AIRES
Argentinians have voted. Their new president, the ultraliberal Javier Milei, took office on December 10 after winning the second round of the presidential election on November 19 with 55.65% of the vote. But another election continues to rattle the country: The chaotic election of the next president of Boca Juniors, the capital's legendary football club. In theory, this matter could only be of interest to the impassioned fans of the blue-and-yellow club, located in the working-class district in southern Buenos Aires. But this vote goes far beyond the country's borders and brings into sharp focus the close ties between football and politics in Argentina and around the world. On Friday, December 8, Milei posted on X a photo of Emmanuel Macron with his thumbs up, gazing at the camera, with a gift sent from Argentina. A "Boca" jersey, signed with his counterpart's boisterous slogan, "Long live freedom, damn it."
Two candidates are vying for the presidency of the club, which was founded by Italian immigrants in 1905 and is still located where they first settle down − at the end of cobbled streets lined with modest colored tin houses near the old port of Buenos Aires. On one side, Andrés Ibarra, a former right-wing minister and former Boca manager, with the support of 64-year-old Mauricio Macri as vice-presidential candidate. A man of power. The former center-right president (2015-2019) played a key role in helping Milei get elected, offering him his support in the lead-up to the second round.
Macri is also attempting to negotiate his comeback to Boca. He was first elected president of the club in 1995 when he was an ambitious 30-year-old, a position he held until 2007. "He then kept control of the club through his successors until 2019," noted Nemesia Hijos, a football anthropologist. This pure product of the economic elite and son of a leading businessman launched the club's modernization: "He created new stands and professionalized management," recalled German Bellizzi, a sports journalist for the television channel TyC Sports. At the same time, Boca was enjoying its most dazzling sporting era, winning multiple international titles. If Macri was able to lead a football club to victory, then why couldn't he manage a city or a country? His record at Boca served him well as a political springboard to the government of the city of Buenos Aires (2007-2015) and then to the presidency. Since 2020, he has been president of the FIFA Foundation.
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