The postcard was the saddest and most hopeless. Valentín Gómezthe former champion with Vélez Sarsfield and one of the best players of the Argentine tournament last year, running with his physical trainer in a square in the city of Udine, Italy, waiting for his investor, the American businessman Foster Gillettdeposit in the coffers of the Liniers club the sum of 8.5 million dollars that it promised for its pass and allows it to be part of the Udinese squad, which intended to have it in early January when the European passes market was opened.
To this situation is added its other international commitment, Rodrigo Villagrabought a River Plate in 11 million dollars and for which he still did not pay a ticket. He defends himself that he has a liquidity problem to move such a sum of money, although in the clubs there is restlessness because the passes are not specified.
This note begins by the end, but has a start. And it was when Javier Milei He assumed the presidency and began a fight with the AFA to allow the arrival of sports anonymous societies as in the main soccer leagues in Europe. In front of the refusal of the organism directed by “Chiqui” Tapia And with the threat of disabling all that team that accepts to be handled by a SAD, the current president of Students of La Plata, Juan Sebastián Verón, met with Foster Gillett To experience an undercover management model, where the employer promised to inject money in large quantity in exchange for 80 percent of the income during the next 30 years and without losing the institution the status of civil association. And although the agreement began to operate, it will be the extraordinary assembly to be held in March that confirms the signed, although the doubts between the partners are increasing.
In 2007, Foster Gillett next to his father George Gillett And businessman Tom Hicks acquired the majority package of the English club Liverpool for 500 million sterling pounds, which they managed for more than three years. According to local media, the management was a nightmare, leaving the club, one of the most important in England, on the verge of bankruptcy, with a dismantled team, without titles already obtained few points in the area of the descent.
Exiled from England, where they are a prohibited word for Reds fans, the Gillett returned to the United States to enter the world NASCARwhere they acquired the Ray Evernham team, which quickly became called Gillett Evernham Motorsports. The offer had been made at 90 million dollars and never paid or 40 percent of that amount.
Rejected in the car sector, Foster took his way alone and returned to football, first offering a million by the Scottish team Hearts FCwhich was dismissed. The same happened to him when he tried to keep the management of the Olympique de Lyon In exchange for 600 million dollars, but they also rejected it. With no one who wants it in Europe, Foster looked for new horizons where to do his personal business and found place in Estudiantes de La Plata, where Juan Sebastián Verón received him as a savior despite the suspicion of the fans.
Verón and Gillett They established a financing of more than 150 million dollars to convert, as its president dreams, students in the third most important team in Argentine football behind River Plate and Boca Juniors. The currency entry began with all the pomp when the businessman acquired the pass of the Boca sensation player, Cristian Medinain 17 million dollars and gave it to the Platense team. Also repatrified the striker Lucas Alariofrom Brazil. With those two stars, Gillett showed that his fire power was to fear. The problem of Gillett’s arrival is not only this present with successes, uncertainties and promises of payments that are already postponed, but also its past.
Asked by news, an important student leader who will cast his vote in the next assembly, admitted: “We will do everything possible to reject the agreement between our club and this mercenary. We already know what happens when an entrepreneur puts money in a club and we do not want ours to end in bankruptcy or in the descent. ”
