[...] A year ago everybody was still at war but
last November a peace deal was signed with the government and the western hemisphere’s longest-running conflict was brought to an end. For the left-wing Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia guerrilla group, or Farc, the Marxist struggle has since taken a new direction and football is playing a leading role.
“Football has always been very popular within the
Farc and so we decided to start our own professional team,” Jeison Yepes says. “Everybody’s excited, we’re all talking about it.”
Yepes is the president of the Farc’s sports committee at the Mesetas camp, one of 26 temporary installations set up under the watch of the United Nations to facilitate the reintegration back into civilian life of more than 7,000 Farc members. [...]
Weekend tournaments hosted throughout Colombia at different Farc camps have helped get former guerrilla fighters involved in sport and tap into a burning enthusiasm for football. These events are also serving to identify potential players.
“There are 16 teams playing in this tournament and so the idea is to start looking at talented players with a view to selecting one or two for regional trials,” Yepes says. “The very best from every region will go on to form the team.” [...]
“The Farc have several teams competing here at La Elvira but we also have sides from local Afro-Colombian communities, indigenous teams and mixed sides made up of the Farc and civilians,” says a former combatant Julian Caballero, who was once on the books of the top-flight Colombian team Deportivo Cali. “Some of the players on my team travel eight hours every weekend to be here.”
As part of the government’s commitment to helping the reintegration process, representatives from Colombia’s sports body, Coldeportes, are running sports and physical education programmes in the camps. “We have 61 people working across the whole country,” says the project coordinator, Gisela Gómez. “Our objective is to get people involved in as many types of recreation as possible, but clearly it’s football they love the most.” [...]
The camp’s commander, who uses the alias Walter Mendoza, is a wizened fighter with 37 years’ service in the Farc. He was once a prized target for the government but this year he was named the Farc’s head of sport. He immediately put football at the top of his list of priorities.
“Believe me, there is a lot of talent in the Farc, not just for football but also in the arts, volleyball, other sports, music and culture,” he says. “Clearly, though, football is what gets everyone excited and so that’s why we are exploring the idea of putting together a professional team to compete in the second division.”
Like many Farc members, Mendoza supports Atlético Nacional, the Copa Libertadores champions and arguably Colombia’s most popular team. He lists the former
Nacional striker Faustino Asprilla as “a long-time personal friend” and claims Tino, alongside other former Colombian stars, is helping collaborate with the project.
Furthermore, Walter reveals a youth coach who spent more than 10 years working at a leading Colombian side in the morning and as an undercover Farc militia member in his spare time, has been a key contact in knocking on doors and building allies.
But neither can claim to be the brainchild behind the idea. That credit falls to Felix Mora. Smartly dressed and with the learned mannerisms of a man well versed in politics, Mora knows how to get things done. A human rights lawyer and avid fan of Bogotá’s biggest football team, Millonarios, five years ago he began exploring a way of bridging both passions.
“Let me be clear, this is not a Farc team,” Mora says, his finger flicking the side of his pint glass. “This team, La Paz FC, will include ex-Farc fighters and anyone considered a victim of the conflict. They will be on the same team fighting for a common goal.” [...]
In April, Mora travelled to La Elvira to meet Mendoza and thrash out a deal. “That was tough, having to go out there into the sticks and be forthright with a top Farc commander that this had to be a joint project involving anyone who has been touched by this war, as a way of uniting Colombians.” [...]
Mora’s project quickly ran into trouble. Besides the logistical nightmare of selecting a team from the best players from the Farc and more than 8,000,000 registered war victims located in some of the most inhospitable corners of Colombia, resistance from powerful sectors of society began to derail ambitions; most strikingly from the country’s main football body, the División Mayor del Fútbol Profesional Colombiano.
Colombia has 36 professional teams split into two divisions, with each club affiliated to Dimayor. In order to enter the Colombian league, La Paz FC have two options: to buy out one of the existing teams or to persuade Dimayor to expand the league by modifying its statutes.
If the first option is problematic because of the huge sums of money needed to obtain a team’s licence (estimated to be at least £5m), not to mention finding a club interested in selling, the second idea is even more riddled with knots. [...]
“I completely reject the idea,” says the former player and ultra right-wing Boyacá Chicó FC owner, Eduardo Pimentel. “Colombian football should not be getting down on its knees in front of the Farc.”
Dimayor has officially taken a more conciliatory stance, arguing discussion must first open with the government in order to analyse the scope of the post-conflict agenda in helping incorporate guerrillas back into civilian life. Privately, though, the controversial proposal has failed to win support.
“This is something that has never happened before,” said a former Dimayor representative. “Honestly, I think it would be very difficult.”
Over the past few weeks Mora has busily sought to engage the press and spark debate about the project. Giving interviews to Colombia’s main newspapers and appearing on radio, Mora has ensured La Paz FC is very much in the public eye.
So much so that even the former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe stormed into the debate with a typically heated response. “It would be an embarrassment,” the hard-right politician said. “After all Colombia’s efforts to rid drug trafficking from football, the Farc are now going to have their own team. It’s nonsense.”
Uribe’s comment that La Paz FC are a uniquely Farc team has become a common theme. While undermining Mora’s attempts to build a team including all actors of the conflict, this focus has also antagonised the Farc, who feel Mora is speaking on their behalf without authorisation. A rupture was imminent.
Following weeks of silence, just a few days ago the Farc appointed Edgar Cortes, a former director at the nine-times Colombian champions Santa Fe, as the group’s spokesperson for sport. He wasted no time in dissolving what had always been a fizzling partnership.
“We have decided to rule out the possibility of working with this team La Paz FC. It’s a project that didn’t take into account what we wanted,” Cortes says. “We will instead be focusing on developing our own football project.”
Provisionally labelled Fútbol Paz Farc, the former guerrilla organisation’s new plan is to set up coaching schools in rural areas long abandoned by the state. While the goal of competing professionally in the Colombian league remains, Cortes argues the Farc must first show they can perform at regional level.
“Our main priority is to work with the most vulnerable people in Colombia in zones that were heavily affected by the conflict. The Farc will be the axis of this project but it will be a pluralistic initiative open to everyone in the country.”
Cortes, a burly figure with snow-white hair, has tapped into his contacts and secured precious support from football authorities. During a recent meeting held with Dimayor’s president, Jorge Perdomo, the football body agreed to help the Farc in areas of coaching and logistics.
“Our focus will now be on developing young players and the under-20s,” Mendoza says. “But this support also gives us a real chance of one day having a professional team.”
Having adopted a more sensible time frame, Cortes’s strategy will be to focus on the Farc’s traditional strongholds in the countryside, while hoping for a gradual softening of attitudes to the former-state enemy within football’s hierarchy.
For Mora and La Paz FC, he maintains that the door remains open to the Farc but admits their withdrawal has been a blow. Nevertheless, he will press ahead.
“This is a long and complicated process,” he says. “But our idea is supported by the government and this is recognised in the country’s peace agreement. That’s important.”
Whether two post-conflict teams can survive and be welcomed in a still deeply polarised country remains to be seen. But with another fledgling idea also registered with Dimayor aimed at bringing professional football to Tumaco, one of the worst-hit areas of the country during the conflict, there is clearly an appetite to use football to unite battle-scarred communities. [...]
But i guess ultimately its the result that matters. And a point isn't too bad.
