South America

Football Reaching Crisis Point in Peru

Nick Dorrington

Peruvian football is in crisis. Financial difficulties mean that domestic league players often go months without being paid, while some clubs have had to merge in order to secure their futures. The national team have lost their last eight matches and sit bottom of the group in World Cup qualifying with no chance of reaching South Africa next year. And now the national team squad are threatening strike action in protest at the way football in the country is administered.

The latest upheaval comes just seven months after FIFA banned Peru from all international competition following a dispute between the football association and government. At that time the government sports agency refused to recognise football association head Manuel Burga, claiming doubts as to the validity of his election to the post. A compromise was eventually reached, and the ban was lifted in December last year.

That did little to improve Burga’s position, however, and it is now the players who have decided action is necessary to initiate change at the top of Peruvian football. "From July 24th, they will not accept a call-up from the national team until their demands have been met," players union president Francesco Manassero stated in May. "We need to take urgent action to change football in our country."

The demands of the union are primarily two-fold. On the one hand they want more clubs to be involved in the voting process for the head of the football association, while they also deem it important for the futures of those involved in the game to be safeguarded. Protection for fired coaches, a minimum standard of working conditions and stricter sanctions against clubs who fail to pay their players are among the measures they feel should be brought in.

Youth football also features prominently in the report issued by the union, with the chief concerns being a lack of competitive youth football outside of the capital Lima, the scarcity of football schools to develop future internationals, and the absence of a certification process for youth coaches.

Peru have not qualified for a World Cup since 1982, and Roberto Palacios, the country’s most capped player, believes that implementation of the union’s ideas is vital to ensure that the nation can rise from the ashes. “We are not turning our backs on Peru,” he affirmed. “On the contrary, we are doing this so that the national team can improve and change its current image. We are trying to look for solutions.”

Initial attempts to diffuse the situation failed, with Luis Souza, brought in as a neutral negotiator between the parties, critical of union officials for missing planned talks. "It seems the union only wants to make trouble," he told the the news agency Andina. "In the end, the clubs will suffer… I'm not in favour of either side, but I disagree with some of the union's ways of doing things."

The two parties did finally meet last week, with talks described as “positive” by Fernando Revilla, who represented the union in the discussions. However, he did note that the proposed strike action will still go ahead unless they “reach a full agreement on all the points raised” before the 24th July deadline.

If that does not happen then Peru will go into their World Cup qualifiers against Uruguay and Venezuela in September with a squad likely to be made up of youth internationals. While their own qualification fate is already sealed, the fielding of a weakened side is likely to infuriate other nations in the region, especially Ecuador, who feel that their campaign will be hindered by Uruguay, and possibly Argentina, facing a below-strength Peru side.

With a record of just one victory in their 14 qualifiers, though, one might argue that the younger players would struggle to do worse than the senior side have thus far. The majority of supporters would probably concur, such is the general disenchantment toward the national team felt by Peru’s working class populous. The players are considered playboys by many, with the nation’s tabloids all too happy to regularly point out moments of indiscretion.

A cursory glance at the results from recent youth tournaments would suggest, however, that the future of Peruvian football is currently looking just as bleak as the present. They have failed to win a game in any of the last three South American U-20 championships, and finished bottom of their group in this year’s U-17 competition. They did reach the quarter finals of the U-17 World Cup in 2007, but have otherwise endured a dismal time at youth level in recent years.

Dismal is the probably the best word to describe Peruvian football in general at this moment in time. There are clearly massive problems with the way football is administered, and although the players union may not be going about it in a way that everyone is entirely comfortable with, they are fundamentally right in their attempts to initiate reform. Change is needed and needed fast if Peru are not to sink into football oblivion.