These things still impress me a lot. Paulino Rivero, who served as President of the Canary Islands Government as well as Mayor of El Sauzal, has solemnly proclaimed: “CD Tenerife must be defended to death, above all else.” Undoubtedly, sports rhetoric has veered closer to political verbosity than the opposite: as in football, political activity, politics presented as a spectacle, is basically sentimentality, if not sentimentalism of the lowest quality. However, I believe it is now politics that is dragging competitive sport – and especially football, the great material and symbolic business of the sports market – into jingoistic braggadocio, caricatured exaggeration, and weeping or smiling foolishness. “Defend it to death,” says Paulino. But defend it against whom? Well, in this case, apparently, against its main owner and co-creator, alongside Miguel Concepción, of the current power structure of society, including the board of directors chaired by Rivero. It can be deduced that, in a way, Paulino Rivero has been forced to defend CD Tenerife from Paulino Rivero.
But what astonishes me most about the president and former president is the confession that what has interested him most has always been CD Tenerife. Not now, mind you, but always. “Throughout my career there has been something in which I have been very firm, which is the defense of Tenerife. And not only with words, but with deeds. I have shown, through actions, that I have always been by Tenerife’s side. For me, Tenerife is the most important thing.” No other Canarian president has been at the helm of the regional government uninterruptedly for eight years. He even tried, and almost pulled it off, to run for another four, a third term. Well, during those eight years, we now know, what consumed his greatest energies, anxieties, and worries was CD Tenerife. Perhaps certain deficits can now be understood, perhaps not, but it is impossible not to admire such unwavering dedication. A global financial crisis erupts in 2008, public spending must be drastically cut, there is no choice but to close operating rooms in the afternoon and provide breakfast to thousands of schoolchildren at noon, and yet, by the end of the 2008/2009 season, the team is promoted to La Liga. Coincidence or Paulino? It may seem excessive, but I imagine Rivero trimming budgets or enduring the polysemous silences of José Miguel Pérez (that man who, after 15 days of membership, was elected Secretary General of the PSOE in Gran Canaria, and what followed) and thinking in that same whirlwind moment about the styles and capabilities of Sergio Aragoneses, Alfaro, Ezequiel Luna, Richi, Kome, Richi, Cendrós, Juanlu Hens, or Saizar. It must be acknowledged: for the vast majority of us, our heads would have exploded. But not for Paulino. He definitely wanted to preserve it to one day become the president of Club Deportivo Tenerife. Rumour has it that it was a promise from Miguel Concepción to his old friend, but I distrust such insinuations. Concepción, a lucid and contemplative man, came to the conclusion that the best thing for CD Tenerife was for it to be presided over by Paulino Rivero. I would not be surprised if, at the time, Concepción had previously examined hundreds of profiles. None like Rivero.
[–>
Before finishing the last paragraph, I hasten to clarify the obvious: I know nothing about football, and not only that, but I find it hard to imagine the enthusiasm that a team arouses, when clubs are already legally and financially companies with an unavoidable corporate logic. Rivero, like all presidents, wants to sell emotions to keep the show running. Those who are in there have been gossiping for twenty years and only offer scandals, clumsiness, shamelessness, skepticism, gossip, and sporting failures. A bargain. To the grave.
Subscribe to continue reading
