Today, the debate everyone has will be over… Julián vs Bareiro, the decisive hour

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The bizarre Stories of Argentinian Football: Day 8

A- Despite it not being allowed in Argentina, Red Bull acquired 80% of a Federal A (3rd division) team this year.

B- In 2016, Liniers (Primera D – 5th division) had to straighten their field, as the boundary lines didn’t form 90° angles; in other words, the field wasn’t a rectangle. The pitch stayed that way 30 years before this modification.

C- Gimnasia de Mendoza played in 9 different seasons in the 1st division, all of them between 1970 (first year) and 1984 (last). They have never been relegated from that division.

D- In 2021, Deportivo Español (Primera C – 4th tier) started to pay their players’ bonuses with cryptocurrency.

Bonus: Israel is being worldwide news, sadly. On a less serious note, Chiqui Tapia is currently part of the 2030 WC fiasco, as he’s part of the Conmebol board that acepted the atrocious logistics it will have. Well, both Israel and Tapia can be combined into today’s bonus. Previous to the 2018 WC, Argentina was going to play a friendly vs Israel in Jerusalen; however, it got cancelled. Tapia apologized later, and said that he cancelled it as a “contribution to World peace”.

If you didn’t read my last post - the bonus isn’t part of the quiz, it’s just another (true) story that I felt like adding. Every quiz from now on will have one.

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THE BIZARRE STORIES OF ARGENTINIAN FOOTBALL: DAY 7 RESULTS

The options from last time, the “teams indirectly affiliated (IA) to AFA” day:

A- Federal Amateur 2022 had 283 teams. Only 6 were promoted.

B- In 2022, AFA gave each Primera B team more than double the money from TV rights than they gave to each Federal A team, despite both divisions being the same tier, and Federal A teams travelling much more across a season.

C- Gimnasia de Jujuy got promoted to the 1st division in 2005. Their city, Jujuy, is located at the very north of the country. The city’s airport wasn’t working for most of that year; therefore, they were forced by AFA to play many home games in Tucumán (around 300 kms to the south), so away teams wouldn’t need to travel that distance by bus.

D- Argentinian football went professional in 1931, but teams indirectly affiliated to AFA were accepted in the main leagues system only since 1980.

(be aware, this will be a bit longer than usual)

A: it’s true and, as usual, it becomes worse. First of all, why so many teams, and why the weird number? Well, have in mind that Argentina is a huge country and this is the last division for IA teams, below this it’s regional leagues to gain a place to Federal Amateur.

Until 2019, there were 2 divisions, Federal B and C, but that year AFA (with Tapia as president) had the “fantastic” idea of merging both into one, also making the new division amateur instead of professional, hence the name. A lot of teams got fucked by that, and you can imagine that nowadays being relegated to Federal Amateur is like entering a black hole, as it’s really hard to get promoted in this mess.

Another thing: actually, in 2022 there were going to be only 4 promotions. What happened? After the 4 finals to determine the promotions were played, someone said “why not have 2 more?”, so the 4 losers played 2 more finals to determine the last 2 promotions. Well, “played” is generous in the case of San Martin de Mendoza: they were supposed to play one of the new finals, but instead got automatically promoted because their rivals, Independiente de San Cayetano, were disqualified due to incidents in a previous game. Odd.

B: Yes, you probably guessed it: it actually gets worse! I chose 2022 as it was the last year, but in some of the previous ones, the money distribution was even worse. In 2020, for example, teams from Primera B made almost 3 times more than Federal A ones, and even Primera C teams made more than those from Federal A. That’s right: teams from 4th division, who usually travel like 30 kms at most and have very small fanbases, made more money from AFA than 3rd division teams that usually travel A LOT more, and are watched by more fans (in case TV views could be an excuse).

And if you’re thinking that it looks like the distribution is slowly improving, I gotta say that I doubt it. If there’s something that Tapia is doing, is NOT giving fair chances to federal teams. I expect the difference to become bigger over time. Consejo Federal (the organization in charge of Federal A & Amateur), as well as many of the team’s presidents, are corrupt as fuck, so Tapia will continue to destroy federal teams as long as he has money to give to CF and its teams’ boards.

C: my story-telling must be improving, as none of you thought I could come up with this. I even made up the airport part haha. But hey, Gimnasia (J) did get promoted in 2005, that part was true.

D: football in England was invented in 1992, and for many teams in Argentina, it was in 1980. I had to specify in the “main leagues system” part, as many IA teams actually played in the first division previously, in the called “Torneos Nacionales”… but that’s a story for another moment.

A last thing: I decided to include a “bonus” in each quiz from now on. This time I will post it here as I forgot to do it in the previous trivia, but starting from the next one, it will be in the same post as the game. It will not be part of the trivia tho, as it will be always true; it’s simply another story, that may not fully deserve to be part as one of the headlines, was too complicated to write in a “trivia option” way, or that I couldn’t include as I have many more.

This time, of course, the bonus is about this trivia’s theme: in 2014, Federal A had 21 new teams compared to the previous season. One of them, Talleres, was relegated from the 2nd division. 3 of them were promoted from Federal B. And the other 17? They were teams from Federal B that were invited by the Consejo Federal to “restructure” the division. Here’s a list with the teams.

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