In the difficult but irresistible path that thousands of young Argentines undertake to reach professional soccer players, that dream that goes from becoming the new Diego Maradona or Lionel Messi to getting out of the poverty that shakes 63% of children and adolescents in the country, there is no shortage of dangers. For example, being exposed to potential sexual assault. A recent ruling by the local justice system found that 15 underage footballers from the youth divisions of different clubs, most of them from Independiente, were victims of at least four abusers between 2017 and 2018.
Although this is the first case of national repercussions, the sexual exploitation of young players is not limited to a club or an isolated event. According to specialists, the aggressors are especially targeting the boys who move from small towns to big cities to join the youth teams of the First Division. Between the distance of teenagers from their parents, their economic vulnerability and the mandate to succeed in football, in addition to their youth, abusers come into action.
On the last working day of 2023, Friday, December 29, a football referee, Martín Bustos, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and corruption of minors against youth players from Independiente and other clubs. Also in the same trial, which closed the case that splashed the team that won the most editions of the Copa Libertadores, three other investigated — Juan Manuel Díaz Vallone, Alejandro Dal Cin and Silvio Fleytas — were punished for the same crimes with sentences of between 12 and 10 years in prison. The remaining two defendants, Leonardo Cohen Arazi and Alberto Amadeo Ponte, do not have a trial date for now.
Although there was originally talk of a paedophile ring, the six investigated – people from the football "environment", tournament organisers, public relations or close friends of representatives – harassed the boys separately, unrelated to each other, which speaks to the vulnerability to which young athletes are exposed. The prosecutor in the case, led by María Soledad Garibaldi, reported that 52% of the boys who testified as witnesses (99 out of 189, from eight clubs in Buenos Aires) received a proposal of sex in exchange for money. The case includes 42 cases of abuse involving 15 victims, most of them who trained and slept in Independiente's boarding house.
The case began in March 2018 and was initially labeled as "sexual abuse and promotion and facilitation of prostitution." "The issue came to light because a 14-year-old boy from Independiente's youth team told the psychologist in the area, Ariel Ruiz, that one of his teammates had started to have more money. It may seem unimportant, but these were gifts to be abused," reconstructs Francisco Panqui Molina, co-author of Alerta Rojo. Who cares about the Inferiors?, a book published in December 2018 and whose title plays with the color of the Independiente shirt.
Immediately, Ruiz and Fernando Langenauer, then coordinator of the Independiente boarding house, where 53 boys between the ages of 13 and 17 were sleeping, all of whom had arrived in Buenos Aires from different parts of the country, gathered the pensioners and explained to them that there was a crime involved. "In their innocence and in their neediness, the boys didn't know they were victims. Because, in addition, the abuses did not take place in a context of explicit violence, neither physical nor verbal, but of supposed friendship," explains Pedro Molina, Panqui Molina's brother and co-author of Red Alert. "The contact is through social networks. They know who are the most vulnerable, who are not going to count. There is a perverse knowledge of the victims to choose them," adds Panqui Molina.
The gifts for the boys after each encounter with their abusers, always in private apartments, took different forms. It could be cash, about 800 Argentine pesos, the equivalent of 40 dollars at the time. Or attention for everyday life, from surcharges on the SUBE card, a plastic to pay for the fare on public transport in Buenos Aires, to longer trips to their hometowns to visit relatives. And, also, gifts for the football career of the boys, such as new sports shoes or more frequent attendance at hairdressers and tattoo parlors. To be a footballer is not only to look like the best on the pitch but to imitate their image.
"The system established an idea in football, that you have to put up with everything. And the truth is that 99 out of every 100 boys in the youth teams don't make it to the First Division," say the Molinas, who followed the case from the beginning. "The players say that they experience football with stress. They are afraid of injury, of being released at the end of the year and of not responding to their families, who in some cases are waiting for a change of life. In the clubs there are boarding houses to house 100 children who are far from their families and with some economic vulnerability. That's why they become a perfect target for child abusers," says Panqui Molina.
Bond of trust
At the end of March 2018, Ruiz, Langenauer and the youngsters who trained and slept in the Independiente boarding house — not all of them abused, but many witnesses — went to court. Boys from other clubs in Buenos Aires joined. "Paying a child with money or goods in exchange for sex is sexual exploitation," said Garibaldi, the prosecutor who a few days later called for the arrest of Bustos and five others implicated, all accused of aggravated sexual abuse and corruption of minors. From the chats, it was proven that Bustos had taken two players, one of them 14 years old, to his apartment. The former referee generated a bond of trust with his victims, even if he did not know them. On March 17, 2018, he started a conversation with a 14-year-old Independiente player via Facebook:
"Hello, crack. Thank you for accepting.
"How's it going?" It's nothing.
"We can get together for a drink and a chat about football if you want." Of course I invite.
"Very good, yes, yes. When I'm over there [San Isidro, 20 kilometers from Avellaneda, headquarters of Independiente] I'll let you know and we'll get together for a drink and a chat, very friendly.
"No, you asshole. I'll go to where you are and have a drink there. I didn't tell you to come to my house either, haha.
"Ah, perfect then.
"When we get to know each other and have more confidence, there's no problem. I even give you the key to my house.
"Hahahaha. Very good.
"You seem very cool to me, you guy. (...) Of course, I ask you not to divulge too much that you have a referee friend because it is not good for a referee and a player to be friends off the field. Maybe? Will you bench me on that one?
"Thank you, maybe you." Don't worry, it's all here.
"I like you better and better. Hahahaha.
Bustos and the other five defendants were detained for six months and were released in September 2018, when the case went from "sexual exploitation" to "corruption of minors", while the oral trial was delayed until December 2023. However, the referee, who until his arrest had become an assistant referee in Second Division matches and fourth referee in the First Division – and therefore was not known to the public – did not move away from the youth players. In May 2019, she set up an Instagram account, @losmasajesdeportivos, and added young people from various clubs to offer them "decontracting and relaxing massage services".
A 14-year-old youth player from Newell's, in Rosario, was suspicious of a message he received: "Hello crack, how are you? My name is Martin Luther [not my real name], I'm a former footballer and I'm currently a sports masseuse. I wanted to offer you a session so that you can get to know my service." The boy, a native of the interior of the province of Santa Fe and resident in the boarding house of the Rosario club, referred the talk to the team's psychologist, who followed the conversation with the referee. They agreed to meet "in a quiet place" in Rosario but Bustos fell into his own trap: the Rosario Sex Crimes Unit went to the scene and arrested him. In the apartment, which was far from a doctor's office, intimate gels and condoms were found.
In June 2019, Bustos was charged by the Rosario justice system with preventive detention for 90 days for the crime of grooming, pedophile deception, with the "purpose of injuring the sexual integrity of the adolescent". From then until December 29, when he was sentenced to 12 years in prison – which he will be able to serve at home until the sentence is final – the referee continued to travel around Argentina.
Without the repercussion of a club like Independiente, other cases of sexual abuse of minors in football are repeated from time to time although, between the silence of the system and the modesty of the boys, they do not reach justice. An exception was in 2017, when the mother of a minor who played for the Mac Allister Sports Club in La Pampa (600 kilometers west of Buenos Aires) denounced coach Héctor Kruber. "Mom, the coach wanted to blow our whistles," her son wrote to her during a school trip. The president of the club, Patricio Mac Allister (uncle of Alexis, current player of the national team and Liverpool of England), separated Kruber and sent an audio to the parents: "I am in the football environment, and this happens everywhere. Even if it hurts. I saw these situations in five clubs." Newspaper reports indicate that in some teams in the Ascenso, such as El Porvenir, a coach went so far as to ask players to smear a cream on different parts of their bodies.
"When we were world champions, I looked at so many kids who went through pensions and maybe experienced it in their own flesh or saw someone who suffered it and thought, what is the price to pay?" reflected Langenauer, the coordinator of the Independiente pension who took the case to court, after the conviction of Bustos and three other abusers. The first step against sexual exploitation in the youth divisions of Argentine football.
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