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FBL-WC-2018-MEX-GER FOCUS
Sex, drugs and… don’t forget the football, Mexico
MEXICO CITY, June 17, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Between the orgy accusations and the
drug-trafficking charges facing their veteran star, Mexico have had their
share of distractions heading into their World Cup opener against Germany on
Sunday.
The headaches started last year when the US Treasury Department accused El
Tri’s longtime captain, Rafael Marquez, of being a “front person” for an
international drug-trafficking organization.
And they got worse on June 5, when gossip magazine TVNotas reported that
nine members of Mexico’s World Cup squad had an all-night party with a group
of 30 prostitutes after their farewell home match that weekend.
The Mexican Football Federation decided against punishing the players,
because “they have not missed training” and “a free day is a free day,” in
the words of general secretary Guillermo Cantu.
But the public condemnation and online mockery have been blistering.
“The federation doesn’t have to punish the party-boy players. The public
and private ridicule will be more than enough,” sports journalist David
Faitelson of ESPN wrote on Twitter.
As the scandal swirled, midfielder Hector Herrera asked for a leave of
absence from training in Denmark to travel to Portugal, where he is based,
and tend to “personal matters,” according to media reports.
Trying to calm the storm, star striker Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez
posted a video online that he said proved the team “didn’t do anything bad” –
– though he admitted, “I don’t think we’d do it again.”
– ‘Locker-room anthropology’ –
The controversy echoes similar scandals around the team in recent years.
In September 2010, Mexico players had an all-night party in their hotel
with unidentified women after a friendly.
On that occasion, the federation fined 11 players and slapped six-month
suspensions on defender Efrain Juarez and forward Carlos Vela.
In June 2011, before a trip to Argentina for the Copa America, Mexican
players hired sex workers in a hotel in Quito, Ecuador. They were fined and
suspended from the team for half a year.
The latest chapter has particularly outraged some die-hard fans, who worry
the scandal will distract the team going into their high-stakes opening match
against the world champions.
“The scandal will affect the family life of those involved, their
relationships with their teammates and their performance at the World Cup,”
said Mexican writer Juan Villoro in a scathing newspaper column entitled
“Locker-room anthropology.”
Other fans take the view that in football, as in love, it is best to
forgive and forget.
“I’m with my Mexico, just like during every World Cup,” said Alfonso
Avila, a 37-year-old fan.
“I hope when the team starts delivering results that all those people who
criticized them aren’t going to try to jump on the bandwagon.”
– Nothing new –
So will El Tri be distracted by the noise?
AFP asked veterans of the Mexican national team to weigh in.
“I think it will distract them, and I think a lot of the players will have
family problems,” said Manuel Negrete, a member of Mexico’s 1986 World Cup
squad.
“They need to be extremely concentrated on the one-on-one against
Germany.”
But there is nothing new in footballers behaving badly, said 89-year-old
Antonio “Tota” Carbajal, a five-time World Cup veteran.
“This isn’t the first team to go through this. I went through it myself,”
he said, recalling an incident from the 1966 World Cup in England, when two
players snuck out of training camp to go to a bar — and coach Ignacio
Trelles followed them to drag them back.
This year’s squad “did a stupid thing, you can’t deny it,” he said.
“But these things unite the team.”
– Tarnished leader –
The bigger problem may be longtime leader Marquez’s legal woes.
Marquez, who was the team captain for years, is playing in his fifth World
Cup, and coach Juan Carlos Osorio says he is counting on his leadership.
But the 39-year-old arrives in Russia under the cloud of an ongoing drug
trafficking investigation that cost him sponsors and forced him to take a
nearly three-month break from football last year to focus on his legal
defense.
“He’s a guy whose leadership will be very necessary at the World Cup,”
said former national team member Joaquin Beltran.
BSS/AFP/AKM 0920hrs