How Argentinian Football Club Boca Juniors Lost Out to Violence
Argentina’s two most famous football clubs and the bitterest of rivals, Boca Juniors and River Plate, squared off in a round of 16 match in the Copa Libertadores, South America’s premier club football tournament, on May 14. Despite the intense build-up and millions of viewers, only the first half of the match was played at Boca Juniors’s Alberto J. Armando stadium.
At the start of the second half, as River Plate’s players were coming back onto the pitch, four of them were attacked with a toxic material used in the manufacturing of pepper spray. This would eventually lead to the abandoning of the most eagerly anticipated match of this year’s tournament, organized by CONMEBOL, South American football’s governing body.
Within five days of the attack, a group of Boca’s supporters were identified as the culprits using the stadium’s security camera footage, with the main offender named as lifelong fan Adrián Napolitano. Prosecutor Susana Calleja issued the summons for Napolitano for questioning, but stopped short of requesting his arrest
However, in the hours and days immediately following the match, debate had raged as to whether it was indeed a fan or even if it was the police themselves. Following the match, the hashtag #FueLaPolicia (it was the police) quickly started trending.
