Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Who owns your Club? - Argentina

To continue with the series already started with Colombia i'll take a look to the owners of the club from the first division of Argentina.


All of the clubs in Argentina first division are owned by the supporters who have the right to elect the president of the club and overturn him if necessary, in fact the mere mention of a club turning in a plc provokes the anger of every supporter, this has lead to a more grassroots approach being more than fútbol clubs, they also field teams in other sports (Boca Juniors has a basketball and volleyball team, River plate also has teams in this sports, and several others clubs are associated with basketball, volleyball, futsal, swimming, amongst others) and for both male and female participants. Becoming a socio of a fútbol club can have other incentives besides supporting your club, as some of the clubs allow the socio to use the facilities for recreation, and if your kid is part of one of the youth programs they'll pay for their education.

However, not all is well in the Argentinian first division as the power given to the fans has been used by some people to take advantage of the system, in some cases presidents of different clubs have given free tickets to Barras Bravas (Argentina Hooligans) in order to gain their support for the elections and mantain power, this has empowered Barras Bravas and created a big security problem in the stadiums as they feel entitled to harras oposing fans without repercusion, which is helped by lax regulation by the Argentina goverment, this is at it's clearest when you watch the games on TV and see huge empty espaces between fans to avoid confrontation, more recently the power given to this "fans" has also lead to internas, fights within the Barras Bravas to achieve the power inside the group.

Another problem has been that even if for some clubs the grassroots projects are more integral for the make up of the club than the results of the fútbol club, for some presidents the only way to stay in power is through results on the pitch, leading to expend wildly in order to achieve them, leaving clubs in a dangerous financial situations when succes on the pitch is not achieved.

I think that's enough of an introduction, the following list of the clubs ranked by number of socios comes form a Lanacion article, there are usually two types of socios vitalicios, lifetime members that are mostly notable or important people to the club and don't have to pay, and regulars, who have to pay a fee to be a socio, the following has the sum of the two:
River Plate socios: 81.000.

Boca Juniors socios: 73.597

Independiente socios: 54.244

Vélez Sarsfield socios: 43.322

Rosario Central socios: 42.000

Estudiantes socios: 40.000

Racing Club socios: 38.629

Newell´s socios: 33.000

San Lorenzo socios: 30.823

10º Lanús socios: 30.500

11º Gimnasia socios: 26.889

12º Colón socios: 17.000

13º Atlético Tucumán socios: 15.000

14º Huracán socios: 13.530

15º Godoy Cruz socios: 10.400

16º Banfield socios: 10.000

17º Tigre socios: 8.500

18º Chacarita socios: 8.000

19º Argentinos socios: 7.000

20º Arsenal socios: 3.000
Any corrections please let me know, as my aim is to make this as accurate as possible. Next up México

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