Paraguayan football's struggle to stay clean
Match manipulation, money laundering and even drug trafficking allegations have dogged Paraguayan football in recent years.
Last year Paraguay ranked 149 out of 180 countries in the Transparency International Index, with a score of 24 it was the lowest since 2014 when Club Libertad’s honorary president and main financial benefactor Horacio Cartes was the nation’s President.
A 2018 report from the Attorney General’s Office in Paraguay began with a play on former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan’s foreword to a 2005 thesis on world corruption. “Corruption is a scourge that severely punishes democratic institutions” reads the Paraguayan version. It is a scourge that has spread throughout society, from traffic cops, to public sector nepotism, to the highest levels of government bringing US-led sanctions. It is no surprise that we see it within the country’s most popular pastime, football.
What follows is just a snippet of the cases that broke or were resurfaced this week in what is likely only the tip of the iceberg.
THE DRUG TRAFFICKING DIRECTOR
In 2022 the international multi-agency investigation, Ultranza, found several football clubs to be at the heart of money laundering operations during the pandemic. The details of that investigation isn’t as relevant to the recent allegations and warrants its own long-form article. However, it is worth mentioning that the resulting chase for the perceived mastermind and Uruguayan drug lord, Sebastián Marset, was partly responsible for the assassination of a leading Paraguayan prosecutor during his honeymoon in Colombia. Marcelo Pecci was a Guaraní fan who often attended games at Dos Bocas. One of the aurinegro’s former sporting directors who later moved to Olimpia, Diego Benítez was already a fugitive from a previous large-scale operation.
Benítez’s name cropped up again this week in an ongoing investigation into the operations of disgraced Congressman Eulalio “Lalo” Gomes, who was killed during a police raid last August on the Brazilian border. The former Olimpia director had been formally charged for trafficking mega shipments of cocaine totalling 23 tonnes, hidden in paint tins, in 2020 and 2021 to Israel and Germany. Detained in Sharjah in 2022, his extradition was finally approved in 2024. However, the latest from the United Arab Emirates was that authorities had “lost trace” of their suspect.
In this week’s leaked WhatsApp chats and audio messages it became clear that Benítez had worked closely with Lalo Gomes while at Olimpia. Messages show them exchanging favours with high-ranking police officers for things such as VIP seats at the stadium and signed shirts. On one occasion Gomes instructed Benítez over the transfer of players.
“What do we need to do to transfer those 2 players for a Operario Club de Campo Grande?” enquires Gomes in February 2021
“I’ll check on the status of their [player] passport” Benítez responds.
It is unclear who they were talking about with no transfers between Olimpia and Operario registered that year. While there were several players that left for Brazilian lower leagues it would be unfair to speculate without evidence.
What is clear is that Benítez had an important influence in the club while at the same time was engaged in drug trafficking. The President who brought him in is our next subject, Marco Trovato.
THE PRESIDENT WHO DREAMED TOO BIG
This week Marco Trovato’s lawyer confirmed that his TAS appeal hearing has been delayed again, this time until March 28th. On Wednesday in a rare long interview since his lifetime ban by FIFA for Match Manipulation, he stated “There are people involved in my case, nothing to do with the people that at one moment had been blamed or targeted. It was much more Olimpista the issue, than any other club.”
The surprising admission that it was an inside job shifts the focus from Horacio Cartes and Club Libertad. It was widely believed that Olimpia’s big spending and footballing dominance during his Presidency, they won four straight titles from 2018-19, had provoked a reaction from the most successful club in the 21st century.
Trovato has consistently claimed he was set up with leaked WhatsApp chats from a conman. The messages claimed that players were being paid to throw games, specifically in that 2018-19 period casting doubt on the sporting achievements. Curiously the club nor any players were ever formally investigated, so many Olimpia fans supported the theory that Trovato had been unfairly targeted.
His chairmanship of the oldest and most successful club in the country wasn’t just a time of on field success but also attempts at economic and cultural revolution. Spending was at an all-time high, Derlis González snapped up for $5 million the same time former Real Madrid striker Emmanuel Adebayor was lured to the club. Multi-million dollar player sales to Mexico with Sebastián Ferreira, Walter González, William Mendieta a club record Richard Sánchez all took place under Trovato’s mandate. Memberships soared as did match attendances, including experimenting with Sunday morning kick offs which was previously unthinkable in the deeply Catholic country.
A combination of the pandemic, his suspension and the net closing in on Benítez saw the ambitious project come crashing down. Olimpia were slapped with a transfer ban unable to pay juicy salaries or cover installments to Dynamo Kyiv for the aforementioned Derlis González. Since 2021 it has been Libertad that came back into the ascendancy winning five of the eight league titles on offer.
While Marco Trovato denies any kind of friendship with Lalo Gomes, the former club President was mentioned in the deceased Parliamentarian’s chats with Benítez. In the wake of Trovato’s ban Gomes lamented the “unscrupulous people” trying to bring him down. Benítez responded “If Marco comes out standing, he’s the next President of Paraguay”.
With that admission, that Trovato was dreaming bigger than just a footballing President a new question arises. Was this ever about footballing rivalry, or was Trovato a victim of a Machiavellianism battle that went beyond the pitch? March 28th might bring some disclosure.
PAYING FOR YOUR LEAGUE POSITION
In the fifteen-plus years I’ve been following Paraguayan football the allegations of match fixing, especially in the lower leagues, has been a constant. Referees are an easy target for disgruntled club presidents after a game, but also vulnerable for approaches from unsavoury elements. “The temptation is always there, people are always calling” said former head of the Paraguayan refereeing committee Amelio Andino. He was speaking in 2020 after an unnamed referee had been separated for corruption.
The news that surfaced this week was a recording allegedly of Deportivo Recoleta President Luis Vidal allegedly explaining that for 20 to 25 million guaranies (US$2500 to US$3000) you can get a referee and VAR on your side. The leaked audio saw the recently promoted side’s President complaining about a sending off that had occurred and said “we have friends in VAR. The referee too. 20 to 25 million guaranies each is what they ask for. I don’t know if it is worth it. We put 8,000 in the other victory…”
An investigation is now underway and Vidal has been cited by the Paraguayan FA’s Ethics Committee. What we do know is that Deportivo Recoleta were Intermedia champions last season by three points.
This latest scandal puts the Paraguayan FA in a difficult spot, Vidal’s company Sport Cesped are a key infrastructure provider. From the new CARDIF complex for youth football, to installing 35,000 seats at the national stadium the Defensores del Chaco. Many of the recent floodlight upgrades in the league have also been through Sport Cesped. Would a sanction affect business agreements?
Similar allegations were launched by controversial Brazilian agent Regis Marques, who has been involved in a legal battle with Tacuary since leaving the club in October the previous year. Tacuary have claimed he was mismanaging finances while administering the club from the boardroom, Marques countered this week that money had disappeared in cash, up to US$130,000, which he says was used to pay referees. The Brazilian continued by explaining that he was suspicious of several of his own players who he separated from the squad in the latter half of the season.
Tacuary, relegated last season, have issued a statement denying the “false accusations and malicious declarations” and fully backing their vice president Jorge Cáceres who was personally identified.
THE TRUTH IS STUCK IN THE WEB OF MISINFORMATION
Ñanduti is the name given to the vibrant and enchanting embroidered lace designs that often adorn tabletops or hang from walls in Paraguayan households. The name means spider’s web in the official indigenous language Guaraní, but the true origin of Ñanduti isn’t really known. Sixteenth century Spanish conquistadores spoke about dexterous needlework, but many historians believe it was European influence that led to the handicraft in its current form. Like our stories today, the truth is somewhere within the web. Trying to verify the sources and find hard evidence behind many of the allegations mentioned today is like tracing your finger along the carefully constructed threads of a Ñanduti design in an effort to find where it starts, such are the interwoven and mesmerizing versions of events from different sides.
As you scratch the surface look for a hidden gem of sincerity you can quickly find you’ve applied too much pressure and plunged through a sinkhole. You often end up shrouded in darkness with more questions than you started with.
Was Marco Trovato innocent all along and just had the misfortune of making his political aspirations too obvious; or was he inextricably linked to the activities of Diego Benítez, the man he invited to the board?
Was Luis Vidal isolated in suggesting the payment of thousands of dollars to match officials; or was he simply repeating what a swath of other club Presidents have said privately?
Did Tacuary players sell themselves short for a cut of gambling proceeds, or was the team just not good enough to stay in the top division?
Ultimately, we will probably never get definitive answers to many of these issues and many football fans probably don’t want to shine the light on them too brightly. It might be fun to put an asterisk next to your rival’s titles, but not as much if your team is included or all the recent championships were called into question. By digging too far you might end up feeling that none of it was ever real.
In the immediate term I think most Paraguayan football fans hope that the criminal actors are brought to heel, no ordinary fan wants their club or the league to be mired in the dirty business of drug trafficking or mafia-like conspiracy. There is less attraction to scrub clean every bad actor who is willing to give a soft penalty for money, or the player who might drop their level for a betting syndicate. Any attempted deep clean might flush out more revelations that Paraguayan football fans are able to stomach.