Daniel Vila: Club directors standing up for football under pressure | OneFootball

The head of Independiente Rivadavia, Daniel Vila, spoke about the significance of the strike across all AFA categories against the encroachment the AFA is suffering.

The president of Independiente Rivadavia, Daniel Vila, clarified the situation regarding the strike across all AFA categories that will take place between March 5 and 8. In an interview with the program Ovación 90, on Radio Nihuil, he defended the measure and said that the clubs are defending football.

The decision by the Executive Committee of the Professional League to suspend matchday 9 of the Professional League tournament received a lot of support, as a way to defend the autonomy of the Argentine Football Association (AFA).

“I believe that there is a lot of misinformation on this topic and sometimes, from certain sectors of the media, there is biased information, information that confuses, conditioned information, and things are not clarified. So, we football executives, the presidents of the Professional League clubs, thought that we had to—in some way—shed light on this, and the way to do it was to draw attention with a football strike so we could clarify things, so people know what this is about. There are no good guys here, there are no bad guys here, there are interests, and there are very important economic interests. What’s at stake are the television rights that a sector, a large business group in Argentina, lost, and also the television rights for the World Cup. That’s all there is to it, a dispute over money, over cash, over economic interests,” Vila explained.

“The ARCA complaint is a consequence, I’d say a minor one, regarding the underlying issue. Let’s remember that this attack on the AFA, its president, and treasurer started about three months ago and it’s ongoing, it’s every day. The ARCA issue is recent, just a couple of days ago. But the underlying issue is that there’s a dispute over who owns the television rights, and that’s what has generated, from a certain media sector, a major campaign of aggression against the president and treasurer of the AFA,” he elaborated.

“What we football executives are doing is defending football. And when we defend football, we defend the fans. It hurts us to have to stop football, it causes the clubs significant economic losses, it makes players and coaches lose competitiveness, and the public loses the chance to enjoy a weekend of football. It’s not a pleasant measure, but we thought it was necessary to put a stop to this and clarify the situation. So, to clarify the situation, we have to take a pause. And I want to make it clear that this was a decision made by the club presidents, not by the president or treasurer of the AFA,” he clarified.

“I am neither an opponent nor anything like that. This has nothing to do with the current government. Of course, the affected economic interests belong to Grupo Clarín, to Torneos y Competencias, who have lost the World Cup rights for their screens, and have lost all the rights to lower-division football, plus the international marketing of all Argentine football. And that meant, in last year’s balance sheet, a profit of 27 million dollars. This is what we are discussing. So, to put names, surnames, and amounts on things, this is a discussion about money, money that should come to the AFA, money that should go to the clubs, money that should serve football,” he said.

Daniel Vila gave his opinion on Independiente Rivadavia vs. River

Later, the blue club executive was asked about the match that La Lepra will play against River. “What suits Independiente on Monday is to win. And River’s coach? That’s River’s problem. Independiente has its squad, its coaching staff, its playing system, it has clear ideas about what needs to be done on the field, which of course sometimes doesn’t work out. But Alfredo Berti, in that sense, sets up the matches very well. Out of the last 8 matches, we’ve only lost one and won all the others, including the Copa Argentina match,” he recalled.

Vila spoke about Sebastián Villa

Finally, Vila referred to Sebastián Villa’s current form at La Lepra, saying: “He started off slow, but improved, and I think we saw a Villa in the last match who is of extraordinary quality. He’s an elite player, one of the best in Argentine football. If not the best.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.