The image went around the world and showed the worst side of Argentine football. On the one hand, the Boca bars. On the other, those from Gymnastics. In the middle, Juan Roman Riquelmepresident and idol of Xeneize, trying to avoid barbarism. The scene took place this Wednesday on the Newell’s field, where Boca qualified for the semi-finals of the Argentine Cup and left several questions to be answered: What would have happened if Riquelme did not mediate among the violent people? Would the situation have been different if the person seeking to intercede between the bars was Jorge Amor Ameal, Román’s predecessor in office and current vice president of the institution? Why did the bar strictly respect the order of 10? What is the relationship that unites one of Boca’s top leaders today with the group led by Rafael Di Zeo, Mauro Martín and Marcelo Aravena?
Although Riquelme was historically distant from Boca’s brave crowd, the truth is that His bond with the members of the second tray goes back a long time. In fact, he even participated in events organized by 12 during his time as a soccer player and praised them before, during and after his presidential race. “There was a situation that was fabulous, that the bars behind our goal began to arrive at that place and helped me get people to calm down, to take care of the Boca fans. You have to take it into account and thank them. Even though they sometimes criticize our club’s bar a lot, they behaved wonderfully and they crossed from behind the goal to the audience to help our fans, and that has to be highly valued,” the president of Boca stated this Thursday on Radio 10.
During the riots in Rosario, Riquelme, together with the members of the Football Council (Marcelo Delgado, Raúl Cascini and Mauricio Serna) and those in charge of the security of the Boca squad, prevented the crossing between the Xeneize and Lobo bars from going any further; something that not even the Police themselves were able to stop. However, the way in which the Boca troops obeyed Riquelme’s order when they were about to clash with the troops, who repressed the advance with tear gas, drew attention.
Among the violent people who obeyed the president’s directive was Rafael Di Zeo, who is prohibited from entering stadiums, although there are other characters from the first line of 12 such as Fabián “Topadora” Kruger, historic member of Di Zeo, and Fernando “Lana” Gatica, history of the Lomas de Zamora faction and right-hand man of Marcelo Aravena, the leader of that group who was imprisoned for the crime of two River fans after a superclassic played in the Bombonera.
During his first stage at Boca, between 1996 and his sale to Barcelona in 2002, Riquelme did not have direct contact with the bars. beyond meeting them every now and then at the club and sharing a waiting room at an airport. But everything changed after 2007, when he returned from Villarreal to lead Boca to their sixth Copa Libertadores. In 2005, Di Zeo had been sentenced to four years and three months in prison for coercion aggravated by the use of weapons against Chacarita fans, in a friendly played in March 1999 at Bombonera. The bar, consequently, was left in the hands of Mauro Martinanother of the bosses, who reigned in the paraavalanches until 2013, when he was also imprisoned for the crime of a neighbor of his brother-in-law.
On December 16, 2008, four days before the key match against San Lorenzo that defined the Apertura at the Racing stadium, Riquelme attended an event in Luján organized by 12, which raised nearly $30,000, about $10,000,000 at today’s exchange rate. The link with the bar came from the side of his brother Cristianwho was friends with the “Mellis” José Luis (the most famous) and Miguel Ángel Fernández, supporters of the old bar of “Grandpa” José Barrita who were with all the leaders and maintain closeness with the current leadership of the club. That night, after passing through the Basilica of Luján, Riquelme attended a dinner show for 500 people put on by Mauro Martín and his accomplices in the Sports Center of the Municipal Workers’ Guild. Although it was announced that the money raised would be used to purchase a wheelchair and several bags of food for community kitchens in the area, The reality is that 12 built its own business around the figure of Román. The photo with the idol cost $20.
Riquelme first denied having participated in the dinner and then, when the first images appeared, he admitted his presence at the scene. “I send a very big greeting to the people of Luján, I am grateful to them because they treated me very well. “I’m not interested in whether he’s a Boca fan or who’s inviting,” he said. “If the invitation came from a drug dealer, would you go too?” A journalist asked him, to which Román ignored him and replied: “It doesn’t matter who invited me. “They invited me to a place to help some kids who needed a wheelchair.”
The relationship between Riquelme and the bar seemed to break when La 12 arranged with Diego Maradona and Carlos Bilardo to be the “official” bar of the Argentine team in the World Cup in South Africa. At that same time, the famous match against Arsenal was even played in which Riquelme assisted Martín Palermo for his record goal with the Boca shirt and decided not to celebrate the goal with the Titan because of his friendship with the leaders of the Xeneize fans. . Days ago, the bar had squeezed the players after a training session at La Bombonera and one of those who had had the worst time had been Javier Garcíagoalkeeper of the team and close friend of the 10. “I couldn’t celebrate the goal behind that goal, that’s why I ran out to celebrate with the audience,” he explained, although at the end of that year he was present again at another event organized by La 12, which also included Sebastián Battaglia and Matías Caruzzo, at the El Fogón restaurant in San Fernando.
“I had a normal relationship with the bar. They would say ‘hello’ to me, they would ask me for money and I wouldn’t give them. I never gave them. I give it to my dad, to my friends, to the guy on the corner who is cleaning a window. I give the money I earn to whoever I want. And that is obviously wrong, it is being strange. But I prefer to be strange,” Riquelme said in 2016. With Di Zeo, it is true, the link was distant until his assumption as vice president at the end of 2019. Rafa even tried to take him several times to pavilion 6 of Complex No. 1 in Ezeiza, where Di Zeo was serving his sentence along with other members of the 12 leadership, although Riquelme never attended.
The hand changed with the triumph of the Jorge Ameal-Mario Pergolini-Juan Román Riquelme formula in the 2019 elections. Di Zeo, Martín and company played for the official list, led by Christian Gribaudo, especially Mauro Martín’s group, while former bosses Christian “Fido” De Vaux and Maximiliano Mazzaro, who had managed the bar during Martín’s prison, They supported the winning trinomial. Still, there wasn’t room for everyone. And Di Zeo, who that same night was denied entry to Riquelme’s bunker, searched for it to continue being in front of the fans that make the most money in Argentina: resale of tickets, illegal merchandising, rags, food stalls and all types of businesses linked to the bar world.
In December 2022, Riquelme led his first political event in Boca with the launch of his group “Soy Bostero”with whom he would compete in the 2023 elections, now as a candidate for president. With a clear candidate profile, Riquelme thanked the support of the more than 10,000 people who accompanied him on the club’s playground. and made a special mention of the bar, making it clear who would rule the rostrum during his four years in office: “Our players are once again grateful for the reception you give them every Sunday, every Wednesday. It’s a party at our house and that’s because of you and the guys behind the arch.to whom I also thank you for how you are behaving, how they are taking care of our club.”
A year later, already in the final stretch of the election, Riquelme led a caravan of fans from Parque Lezama to La Bombonera to show the weight of his popularity and leave a message against the advance of Macrism. A crowd followed in the footsteps of Román, who made the journey aboard the bed of a pick-up truck along with Blas Giunta, Marcelo Delgado, Diego Soñora, Antonio Barijho, Silvio Rudman and… Carlos Sebastián Maciel, member of the first line of La 12 who acted as security for the idol at all times. In April of this year, “Skeletor”, as Maciel is known in the popular community, was accused along with Di Zeo in a case for illegal possession of a shared weapon after a search by the Córdoba Police of the bars’ buses. of Boca in the preview of a match against Estudiantes, so the right of admission was also applied. On the day of the elections, Maciel supported Riquelme in his arrival at Bombonera.
This Wednesday, the images of the horror at the “Colossus” Marcelo Bielsa also showed two men linked to the club’s security in action: Marcelo Ferreyra, in charge of the custody of the campus, and the son of Alejandro Vocos Gimenezformer Federal Police officer and deputy commissioner of section No. 24 that has jurisdiction over La Bombonera and that informally manages Boca’s security despite having legal cases that link it to the bar, and particularly to Di Zeo.
This Sunday, when Boca receives Riestra at the Bombonera, La 12 will surely display one of its several curtains with the name of Riquelme, like the one that says “I was born a boster thanks to my dad and I am going to die a boster like all of you,” premiered in March of this year in a match against Belgrano. One more sign that Riquelme and La 12 play for the same team.