'The president: game of corruption', the ins and outs of soccer

If a series is titled

a meeting can be organized to find out who it is, since the possibilities are multiple.

The Amazon Prime Video production chooses to narrate the life and work in eight chapters of João Havelange, president who was the International Federation of Associated Football (FIFA) for almost 25 years, from 1974 to 1998, a character with lights and shadows and in which the international expansion of football as a show and business intermingle with corruption as a way of life.

The Chilean-Argentine-American co-production [second season of the series

] deals with the subject with rigor and humor, there is no hiding the miseries and baseness of an ambitious Brazilian willing to do anything to stay in power, from bribery to money laundering. money, but with the counterpoint of amusing monologues by an extraordinary actor, the Colombian Andrés Parra.

Among the darkest political-financial episodes, the organization of the World Championship in Argentina stands out in 1978, in full repression of the Military Junta, a detail apparently of no importance for the powerful Havelange and that he has found in the Swiss Gianni Infantino and his current Qatar, with its outrages against human rights, an exemplary follower.

"Mighty gentleman is Mr. Dinero", as the classic said.

A more than correct series about the ins and outs of soccer for those who don't play soccer and that defines them in one headline of many possible: 14 people, including nine associated with the world soccer governing body, were charged in May 2015 of fraud, organized crime and money laundering and on suspicion of having received 150 million dollars in bribes.

"Football is football."

You can follow EL PAÍS TELEVISIÓN on

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber