Students fulfilled the request of the Professional Football League, which indicates that the rival team must receive the champions with a hall of recognition. Of course, with one detail… Just Angel Di María and all the players of Central Rosary They began to walk down that hallway, the Estudiantes de La Plata soccer players turned and turned on their backs.
It was a clear message of rejection of the AFA’s decision to declare Rosario Central League Champion for being the team with the most points added in the annual table.
This resolution generated immense discomfort in Argentine football in general because it was not contemplated in the initial regulations of the championship. It seemed like a nod from president Claudio Tapia to the world champion Ángel Di María, who returned to the Argentine league in this last semester.
The AFA had said that all club leaders unanimously approved that idea. But Estudiantes responded with an official statement emphasizing that no vote had been taken. The story continued with this unprecedented hallway. President Juan Sebastián Verón spoke with his players in the preview and suggested it. And they followed that line…
Then there was a match in which Estudiantes beat Central 1-0, in Rosario, and qualified for the Clausura quarterfinals. The goal was scored by Edwin Cetré. Verón is today the only Argentine soccer leader who harshly questions, without fear of reprisals, the procedures of the AFA led by Claudio Tapia. And he believes in the insertion of private capital to promote the development of clubs, something that the AFA fights with total force.
Everything happens at a time when Argentine soccer fans are also outraged by multiple suspicious arbitrations that favor teams “friendly” to the power of the AFA.
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Estudiantes players and coach were silent. Instead, at Central they talked about the hallway. Coach Ariel Holan said “it seemed very unfair to me.” And Di María put it into perspective: “They did the same thing in the hallway. One of the boys told us that they were going to do that, it’s very good. It’s their thing. We entered as we had to enter and it stayed there.”
