Scenes last week of Argentines in football club shirts clashing with police at a pensioners’ anti-austerity march crossed a line for many in a country that is no stranger to football hooliganism.
For political observers, the football fans’ presence — and their actions — was symptomatic of the political abandonment of marginalised Argentines, now turning to unorthodox defenders.
As Buenos Aires prepares for another pensioners’ march Wednesday — a week after the most violent protest yet against President Javier Milei’s budget-slashing measures — some wonder if the violence will become a permanent feature.
«We’ll be back on Wednesday with the retirees. We have the right to fight for causes we think are just,» said Fernando Vivas, a 55-year-old salesman and Boca Juniors fan who marched in support of the pensioners last week with fans of dozens of clubs.
«If they plan to double down on repression, we have to triple our participation,» he told AFP, expressing a popular view.
For years, Argentina’s increasingly cash-strapped retirees have protested every Wednesday against a loss of purchasing power — worsened since self-declared «anarcho-capitalist» Milei took office 15 months ago.
Usually, the demonstrations gather just a few dozen older people. Union, opposition and social leaders have been notably absent.
Then last week, football fans turned out in their hundreds after an online campaign in response to reports of elderly marchers having been manhandled by police.
Protesters in football shirts, some wearing masks, threw stones they had ripped up from sidewalks, burned cars and rubbish bins, and barricaded streets.
Police simultaneously shot tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets.
The running battles injured 45 people, including police, protesters and a photojournalist left in a critical condition.
‘Football’s central place’
But how did the seemingly unlikely alliance come about?
«If the political opposition is fragmented, the social opposition is not: they are very clear about their opposition to this government,» Sergio Morresi, a sociologist at the CONICET research institute, told AFP.
And in the land of Messi and Maradona, what better way to organise resistance than through well-established football club structures?
The calls to action «would not have had so much resonance if it weren’t for football’s central place in Argentina,» said sports sociologist Diego Murzi.
In Argentina, most clubs are non-profit associations, not privately owned entities, meaning they are natural breeding grounds for politics.
And with no unifying opposition banner in a country that is deeply divided politically, «it is easier to identify oneself as a football fan to defend a social and political cause,» said Ivan Schuliaquer, a political scientist at the University of San Martín.
Throwing one’s lot in with football fans does have risks. Hooliganism in Argentine soccer is such a problem that fans from visiting clubs have been banned from attending matches since 2013.
«Anyone who goes to the stadiums… is not afraid of the police, is used to violent contexts,” said Claudio Godoy, a 64-year-old teacher and Racing supporter who demonstrated last week.
In such a context, «the representation crisis of the political opposition is so strong that the slightest collective spark ignites the powder keg,» added Murzi.
The events of last week elicited strong feelings on both sides of the divide, with the government condemning the protesters as «gangs» of hooligans bent on sowing chaos and bloodshed.
Government opponents, for their part, «feel strengthened, victimised,» by the outcome, while «government supporters see in the repression… something not only to tolerate but to encourage,» said Morresi.
The images, broadcast around the world, nevertheless risk tarnishing the government’s efforts to show Argentina as a stable economy at a time it is seeking a new loan agreement with the IMF, he added.
by Sonia Ávalos, AFP
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