So much of the recent history of Colombia has been the history of the stranglehold of
cocainetrafficking drug cartels on its politics and on its culture.
After a series of civil wars in the mid 20th Century, and a politically unstable compromise
between liberals and conservative to rotate in and out
of government, it was under the presidency of Julio Turbay that the Colombian drug cartels
began to flourish in the late 1970s.
By the 1980s, cocaine was a multi-billion dollar enterprise, pulling over $4 billion
into the Colombian economy. Cocaine had become Colombia’s most
marketable export, a development attributable to two
groups: the Cali cartel led by Miguel and Gilberto Orejuela, and the Medellín cartel
headed by Pablo Escobar.
1973 saw the first investment by a drug cartel into Colombian football, with marijuana trafficker
Eduardo Enrique Dávila buying out recent national champions Unión Magdalena in the
city of Santa Marta. But Cocaine money would soon change
the face of Colombian football forever. The Orejuela
brothers poured millions into club América de Cali at the end of the 1970s despite being
fanatical supporters of their local rivals Deportivo.
America had been been relative unknowns up until the end
of the decade. Deportivo, meanwhile, had won five Colombian titles between 1965 and 1974,
and in 1978 became the first Colombian side to reach
the Copa Libertadores final, losing to the famous Boca
Juniors. With Deportivo turning down the Orejuela’s
advances, the balance of power in Cali soon shifted.
Drug money assembled Colombia’s best club side. A host of major players came through
the door, including Argentine forward Ricardo Gareca
from River Plate, Paraguayan star Roberto Cabañas and
Peruvian midfielder Julio Uribe. The football club was the perfect depository for laundered
drug money. Cartels could inflate transfer fees
and gate receipts to legitimise their earnings. Football clubs
were given a taste of success for as long as they allowed cartel cash to flow through
the coffers. The Cali cartel bought themselves five straight
Colombian championships, as well as a place in three
consecutive Libertadores finals. Rodrigo Lara, the Colombian justice minister
who denounced cartel involvement in Colombian football clubs in 1983, was gunned down the
year after by hitmen working on behalf of Pablo
Escobar. The football-fanatical drug kingpin and mass murderer took advantage of the positive
PR the sport could bring him. In the early 1980s
the Medellín cartel invested in various football clubs,
including Atlético Nacional, and Bogotá’s Millonarios.
Football became the proxy by which cartels played out their rivalry. The more successful
the team, the richer and more successful the cartel
looked. Football gave them public legitimacy, and pointed to
the all-powerful reach of the cartel owners. Escobar henchman José Rodríguez, better
known as Gacha, bankrolled Millonarios from 1986 and
they stormed their way to two consecutive titles in ’87
and ’88 thanks to a series of major signings from Argentina.
But it was the Escobar name which left the indelible mark on Colombian football. Pablo
Escobar saw his local team Atlético Nacional as an important
opportunity to sanitise his public profile. At one
point the seventh-richest man on the planet, Escobar used his wealth to buy himself public
favour. Portraying himself as a modern-day Robin Hood,
he invested the proceeds from his drug empire into
social housing, schools and even football pitches in his native Medellín. With Escobar
a key backer, Atlético Nacional won only their fourth Colombian
championship in 1981, but after the death of
manager Osvaldo Zubeldía a year later, América’s rise to five consecutive championships saw
Nacional fade. Cali had stolen a march on Medellín. It was only through the signing
of Colombian team coach and former star player Francisco
Maturana in 1987 that Nacional announced Colombian football to the world.
The international prestige of Colombian football rose alongside the country’s reputation
for drug warfare. The two were inextricably connected.
Nacional was an extension of Escobar’s all-powerful influence on Colombian life, with his millions
pushing Nacional all the way to the 1989 Libertadores final, defeating Paraguayan outfit Olimpia
1-0 over two legs. Colombia finally had its first South
American champion. Nacional didn’t rely on importing star players
from abroad like América and Millonarios. Instead,
Nacional’s methods were more typical of the man whose motto silver or lead, money
or death, had hung over Colombian life for almost two decades.
In 1990 Uruguayan referee Daniel Cardellino confessed to having been the subject of death
threats in case he failed to favour Nacional in their
quarter final tie against Vasco da Gama. In November 1989, after Deportivo Medellín failed
to get the better of rivals América de Cali in a must-win
game, the referee Álvaro Ortega was found murdered
and the league championship discontinued. Escobar henchman John Velásquez claimed the
murder on the part of the Medellín cartel. Four
of the six teams in the title race at that point were under cartel
control. A generation of players who had grown up in
Escobar’s Colombia, and played on his pitches, qualified for the 1994 World Cup among the
favourites. A star-studded spine including Tino Asprilla,
Freddy Rincón and Carlos Valderrama, who recorded a thumping 5-0 qualifying victory
in Argentina, had the cafeteros daring to dream. But fate
was not on Colombia’s side. With Higuita banned from
the tournament for involvement in a cartel-ordered kidnapping, and the spectre of drug warfare
at home looming, the Colombian bid soon fell
apart. A 3-1 defeat to Hagi’s Romania in their opening
game sent them into a crunch tie with their American hosts.
With Colombia on the brink, the cartels made their most direct interference into the national
game, delivering a message on national television
that there would be fatal consequences if Nacional
midfielder Gabriel Gómez played in the next game. Coach Francisco Maturana saw no choice
but to leave him out, and Colombia sank to a 2-1
defeat and an early exit. The face Colombia showed to the
world was blemished by the rivalry between cartels back home. Colombia, the USA’s chief
source of cocaine, brought the drug war right back to
America’s doorstep. Star defender Andrés Escobar had been in
the process of finalising a move to European Champions
AC Milan. Fate tragically intervened, as his own goal helped condemn Colombia to the defeat
that would eliminate them from the tournament.
Weeks later, he was confronted and killed by a gunman
outside a Medellín nightclub shouting ‘goal’ with each pull of the trigger. Bodyguard Humberto
Muñoz was eventually sentenced to 45 years in prison and was released after 11 for good
behaviour. A court ordered multi-million peso compensation
for Escobar’s family was never paid. Despite the cartels’ decreased power, their
influence on Colombian football can still be felt. Striker
Antony de Ávila dedicated the goal that took Colombia to the ’98 World Cup to the leaders
of the Cali cartel. Colombian attorney general Alfonso
Valdivieso saw his presidential campaign in tatters after
publicly criticising the gesture. Although the end of cartel ownership has returned
Colombian club football to a more humble level, it’s hard to know where the story ends.
When Colombia were awarded the 2001 Copa América, Argentina and invitees Canada withdrew citing
death threats. The reconstruction of Colombian football went alongside the reconstruction
of Colombia itself. The presidencies of Antanas Mockus
and Álvaro Uribe have reinvigorated Colombia’s public image and the nation's football clubs
are starting to follow suit. In 2012, Millonarios
offered to return the two titles they won under cartel
ownership. But a year later home fans unfurled a banner in memory of Gacha’s contribution
to their success in a game against Atlético Junior.
And five of the last ten Colombian championships have
been won by clubs who were once under the control of the drug cartels.
The shadow of the drug wars and the ‘narco soccer’ age still hangs over the country’s
favourite pastime. This is not just the story of a small
group of drug traffickers. This is the story of how a lack
of political control provided the perfect soil for cartels to flourish and extend their
power to all corners of people’s lives. Echoes of the Colombian
cartels can still be felt in its society, and its football
teams, to this day.