The return of Jonathan Viale to the driving of Do you see her? in TN It did not go unnoticed in the media environment. The son of the remembered Mauro Viale entered the studio in a way that became a trend on social networks and the media. The journalist broke into the station parking lot at the wheel of a red Ferrariaccompanied by a provocative nod towards the leadership of the Argentine Football Association (AFA)in particular its president, Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia, and Pablo Toviggino.
The scene was more than an ostentatious entrance, while the car’s powerful engine roared, a journalist approached and handed him a towel to “dry the back of the neck”in a metaphor that refers to the curious habit of the head of the Argentine soccer entity regarding his perspiration in that region of the body. Viale did not hesitate to joke: “Not a Ferrari, my Ferrari… belongs to Chiqui Tapia,” he ironized, exacerbating the tones of the sketch with a clear satirical intention towards the football leader.
Later, in his editorial, the host once again put his critical vision of local football and the leadership of the AFA on the table. The journalist titled his column with a strong reference: “The AFA exudes corruption and Kirchnerism dries the back of its neck with the towel of the story”in reference not only to Tapia and Toviggino, but also to sectors of Peronism that, according to him, have protected or minimized complaints of financial irregularities in the sports association.
The journalist’s statements are not an isolated fact within his editorials. Since the leadership scandal emerged in the middle of last year, Viale assumed a permanent place on the TN grid that has combined frontal attacks against the AFA. In particular, Tapia and Toviggino have been the subject of recurring questions by the driver, who has exposed judicial investigations, accusations for alleged improper withholding of contributions and diversions of millionaires, citing causes and raids that involve shell companies and opaque contracts.
This editorial approach has put it at the center of debates about the position of journalism regarding Argentine political and sporting power. The entrance with Ferrari, the equestrian jockey waiting in the parking lot (an allusion to Pablo Toviggino’s hobby) and the “dry neck” joke became a symbolic synthesis of that style: media spectacle with political criticism, humor and irreverence.
