It would be nice if he C.D. Tenerife ended up run by a peninsular millionaire entrepreneurially and sentimentally chaired by a former nationalist politician. Although Paulino Rivero is not strictly a former politician. No politician – as happens to priests – never ceases to be. Rivero less than anyone. Yours is a fascinating case. There was a moment, a crazy and irrational moment, in which Paulino Rivero, one of the most intelligent, astute and intuitive politicians of the politics Canary Island of the last half century, unknowingly imitated Frank Underwood, the presidential arch-scoundrel played by Kevin Spacey: «Paulino Rivero 2015, Paulino Rivero 2019, Paulino Rivero 2023, Paulino Rivero 2027…» He had double bad luck: the financial and economic crisis of 2008 and the arrogant overflow of an obsessive mistrust on which he based his mechanism of control and co-optation in Coalición Canaria and, very especially, in the organization of Tenerife. It was Rivero’s own Caesarist impulses –determined to do anything to continue governing the Canary Islands and commanding CC- that led to his downfall. He never fully understood it, because he considered himself a tough and ruthless guy – and he liked it – but fiercely loyal to his people, and it’s more or less true. Still in the parliamentary gallery you find some exalted official of Rivero letting the idle hours pass while he collects a paste. Not Coalition, of course. Years ago, CC did not want to know anything about Rivero, nor did Rivero want to know anything about CC. There are those who even say that he hasn’t paid his dues as a militant for a long time, perhaps as an act of provocation, to see if they open a file on him. Ah, people are sometimes so gossipy.
Of course Miguel Concepción is one of Paulino Rivero’s loyalties. For some time, after Fernando Clavijo came to leadership, several pens (and production company owners) spent hours and adjectives sketching a progressive Rivero, something like a complete eco-socialist who had been eliminated by the stinking far-right sectors of CC. He is very funny. Rivero will bring social democracy to the heave. He deeply dislikes people who subscribe to complaints and denunciations, but he has the utmost sympathy for those who, from a very humble position, knew how to succeed in life, as is his own case. That brings him together with Miguel Concepción. That and the tendency of the ambitious political leader to dispose of his own chamber businessman. From his time as Minister of Public Works in the Cabildo de Tenerife, between the end of the 1980s and the mid-1990s, he was his employer, and later he was his employer at CD Tenerife, and then his employer to break the quasi-monopoly of Binter in inter-island air traffic, which went very wrong because, as Concepción has recognized in court, he swindled millions with residence subsidies. For this reason, because he is about to be disqualified, Concepción is leaving CD Tenerife, not because of the exhaustion of a project or because of chafarmejadas like that. And before leaving, he wants to ensure a stable shareholding majority – if possible, preventing Mr. Garrido from controlling anything – and put his colleague Rivero in the presidency. He already tried it a few years ago, but it couldn’t be.
Paulino Rivero, again president. Those who maintain that he would still be tempted to use the Blue and White team as a platform for his political relaunch are wrong. It is a rather fragile terrain and he is no longer old enough for such an adventure. Rather, he should even close his blog and not talk about games. But it is in command, the dialogue with political and business power, the lights and the cameras, the statements and the warmth of the public and singing in each derby while entering the Heliodoro: “Grateful, excited… Thank you for coming”
