On March 7, 2023,
Florencia Marcó, press officer of the Boca women's soccer team,
reported to the court that the team's coach,
Jorge Martínez
, had been harassing and sexually abusing her since the beginning of 2022. She then said that all the authorities of the club were aware of the situation and that no one had done anything about it.
This Friday, a year later, the trial began.
For five hours, 14 witnesses testified, of which 11 have an employment relationship with the club.
"They only told lies,"
Andrea Lucangioli, Marcó's lawyer,
told
Clarín .
"The story of these witnesses was
full of contradictions and lies
, such as the case of the two members of the Soccer Council,
Jorge Bermúdez
and
Marcelo Delgado
, who stated that they had learned of the abuse and harassment from the press. The victim, Florencia Marco, stated that the three members of the Soccer Council, Bermúdez, Delgado and Raúl Cascini,
were informed of the situation of abuse and harassment towards her and other players
," Lucangioli details.
"According to their statements,
they are in charge of defining the work methodology
, supervising the training, and the work of the coaches. Given what has been said, we ask ourselves, How can they do it correctly and without actively intervening when there
is already a report made ?
by the Club's Inclusion Department
, regarding the abuse and harassment of Jorge Martínez? This highlights
the pact of chivalry between the boys
, as they call themselves, where one acts as the main author of the act and the others as accomplices who cover it up." , continues the lawyer.
And he says more: "While the trial was taking place behind closed doors, outside in the hallway, there was the lawyer accompanying another of the members of the Soccer Council, Mauricio Serna, advising the witnesses of both parties, currently linked to the Institution. :
'You don't have to say anything you don't want to', 'if you forgot, you forgot', 'they are going to explain to you that the statement is under oath, but that is just to scare you, because nothing happens
.' All these recommendations were accompanied with sandwiches and drinks for everyone. This advice to the witnesses resulted in lies, contradictions and omissions when testifying."
"The clear, reliable and coherent stories came from
people who are not currently linked
to Club Atlético Boca Juniors," he says.
Indifference and silence
Florencia Marco denounced abuse by the former women's soccer coach and indifference on the part of the club.
Florencia Marco
is 36 years old and has been working as a press member for Boca
Juniors for twelve years (she is now on leave).
In 2022 she took charge of women's football communication.
But immediately, she claims, the harassment and abuse by Martínez, then coach of the First Division team, began.
He also said that several players suffered harassment from the coach.
She said repeatedly that she reported everything internally;
and that no one ever did anything.
Tired, she went to court and, only after making her complaint public, the DT was removed from her position.
Jorge Martínez, former coach of the Boca women's team, reported for sexual abuse.
"Specialist teams on the subject must be assembled in the inclusion and equality departments that know, and are prepared,
that respect the protocols, which in this case were not respected at any time
," says the lawyer, who specializes in discrimination and gender.
"When the psychologist from the Department of Inclusion and Equality of Boca spoke, in the oral trial,
the judge was perplexed
. The psychologist said that she had not found the touching serious or important enough to take any type of measures, and that therefore They passed that on to human resources so they could give her a license because it had to do with something work-related, but
the abuse, harassment and touching
of Marco and the rest of the players did not seem so important to her to make any kind of determination. within the Department of Inclusion and Equality," he says.
"The person who signed the report was a social worker who had been called to advise him, and when they asked him what he did and if he was a gender specialist, he
only said that he had taken a course and that he enjoyed the subject
, a disaster. "They do something like that but they don't work seriously," he says. "
Inclusion and gender departments must be implemented in the clubs with teams specialized in the matter
, with psychologists, lawyers, social workers. This way, when a complaint comes, they know how to work."
"When I asked the Boca Inclusion Department what they were going to do, they told me that they were going to pass the case to a disciplinary court, and now in the oral trial
they said that there was no disciplinary department
. It's all like what, but nothing is done, they don't give it importance," says the lawyer.
And she makes a comparison with the complaint of a sports journalist to four Vélez players:
"
Happy
to the president of Vélez
who immediately disengaged the players for the duration of the investigation and called the victim on the phone. Flor has been working in Boca for twelve years and "She never had problems with anyone. And no one ever called her, a disaster."
"Harassment and abuse in football continues because
they are men who maintain power
, because they have naturalized abuse and harassment towards women. Because it is their way of managing and bonding. Because
they maintain this pact of chivalry between them.
They impose fear to the victims of abuse and violence. That is why
this trial can mark a before and after
for this type of behavior to end," Lucangioli concludes.
The trial - Oral Court No. 22 led by Sergio Paduczak, with the Oral Prosecutor's Office No. 22 led by Dr. Martínez Burgos, intervened - entered into an intermission at the request of the former soccer player's defense.
It resumes this Monday at 9:30 in the Comodoro Py Courts.
Pleadings will then be presented and the verdict read.