Corpse smuggled into football match in Colombia

[Sasha]

for those americans suprised how serious the rest of the world takes footbal:


Corpse smuggled into football match in Colombia

By Alejandro Pérez and Tim Sturtridge

Wednesday, 30 March 2011

http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/dynamic/00589/coffin1_589741t.jpg (http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/corpse-smuggled-into-football-match-in-colombia-2257528.html?action=Gallery)
GETTY IMAGES
Supporters of Deportivo Cucuta football club carry a coffin as they arrive to the General Santander Stadium in Cucuta


http://www.independent.co.uk/independent.co.uk/images/i_photos.gif More pictures (http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/corpse-smuggled-into-football-match-in-colombia-2257528.html?action=Gallery)








Police officers were caught napping at a top flight clash in Colombia as fans managed to smuggle in a coffin containing a corpse.
The incident occurred when police officers opened the stadium gates 15 minutes before the end of a match between Cúcuta Deportivo and Envigado. Instead of fans pouring out of the Estadio General Santander to beat the traffic, hundreds of supporters rushed into the ground along with the recently deceased


The coffin even made it onto the terraces in time to witness home team Cúcuta Deportivo snatch a dramatic late equalizer.
Cúcuta's police chief, Alvaro Pico Malaver, admitted that the incident had taken his officers by surprise.
"We think that the plan was concocted and carried out by the fans on both sides of the gate. As soon as we opened the doors between 200 and 300 fans rushed in with the coffin.
"They surprised us, we never imagined a thing like this could happen. These type of things are a learning process for police officers."
The body within the coffin has been identified as belonging to Cristopher Alexander Jácome Sanguino. 17-year-old Sanguino was gunned down in a drive-by shooting the day before the visit of Envigado while he was playing football in the street.
As a member of Cúcuta Deportivo's hardcore supporters, la barra del indio, it appears Sanguino's death wish was to see his team play one more time.
While in his coffin, Sanguino spent eight minutes in the heart of Cúcuta Deportivo's home terrace on his final trip to the ground. His coffin quickly became the focal point of the crowd's celebrations following Diego Espinel late equalizer for the home side.
Before the incident police had already banned all members of la barra del indio from entering their stadium, still the supporters managed to wrong foot the officials. One person who is fully in favour of the supporter's actions was Sanguino's mother, Yamile.
"I took him to the stadium ever since he was a little boy. He loved the game and he loved his team so what better way to honour him?"
Cúcuta Deportivo have recently emerged as a force in Colombian football after winning their first top flight title in 2006. The following year they reached the semi-finals of the Copa Libertadores before being eliminated by eventual champions Boca Juniors.
The club also gave former Newcastle United striker Faustino Asprilla his big break and has a long history of craziness both on and off the pitch.
Alejandro Pérez and Tim Sturtridge host The South American Football Show in association with The Independent. For more information click here. (http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/free-download-the-south-american-football-show-2067783.html)




to these friends i can only say:
http://attendingtheworld.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/tip_of_the_hat.jpg

[Kuppo Shakur]

It's still boring.:glare:

[RedSonRising]

I love going to games in Colombia. Touching story.

[F9]

What a story...!Sad and respectful action from his fellow fans the same time.I can understand that this could be the best "good bye" for lots of people!

[Rooster]

I'm still surprised at how seriously people take a sport.

[F9]

"Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."-William 'Bill' Shankly

thanks to sports quotations thread i found probably my favorite quote, and here it is for you rooster.

[StalinFanboy]

It's still boring.:glare:


Everything you do, unless it involves shooting guns, is infinitely more boring.

[Kuppo Shakur]

Well, just earlier today actually I shot a muzzle-loading revolver while eating pizza at the same time.
And then I did aerobic exercises while smoking a cigar.
Pretty fucking exciting stuff.

[Tifosi]

I know there is an offical HSV Hamburg cemetery, but this seems to be a South American thing. Like this (http://rogue.ph/sports/entry/immortal_beloved/) story about Boca Juniors.


The Argentine football club Boca Juniors is a dynasty that will never die, thanks in large part to their rabid fans. Each time a goal is scored in their home stadium, La Bombonera, thousands of screaming fans toss the remains of dead friends and relatives onto the field as a sign of loyalty and support. Jonathan Franklin attends a few matches and visits the Boca Juniors cemetery in Buenos Aires, and attempts to understand the profound dedication of football’s most passionate fans
When Boca Juniors, the Argentine football club, scores a goal inside their home stadium, La Bombonera, thousands of fans toss yellow and blue confetti, dozens launch firework rockets, and a few throw plastic bags onto the pitch—inside these bags are human ashes, pulverized bones, and the remains of dead fans.

“It is the dying wish of every Boca fan to be left to rest here,” says Rafael Garcia, a 19-year-old fan, as he points around La Bombonera, Boca’s famed home stadium which sits in a poor harbor neighborhood in the center of Buenos Aires, Argentina. “So you see people smuggling in pieces of bone and ashes, and after a goal they throw it onto the field.”

“My brother asked me to draft the legal documents for this,” explains Carlos Reyna, an Argentine businessman, who shows me a copy of his brother’s will and last testament which includes the phrase: “Please and with all care have my ashes delivered to La Bombonera where they can be spread on the field.”

Reyna says “there are thousands of fans like this,” as if it were normal to ask family members to illegally smuggle in a plastic bag full of charred bones and ashes, and then toss them onto the field while 65,000 fans cheer madly. “In Argentina, Boca fans are like that.”

When Boca Juniors won their 16th international title in September, they made headlines all across the football world. They beat the reigning World Club Champions Sao Paulo, Brazil—and now they have more International Cups than Real Madrid or AC Milan.

Boca Fans are considered among the most passionate—not violent—but literally devoted to their team both in life and death. A classic song that the Boca fans sing has the now-famous stanza: “from heaven we cheer you on.” Thousands of fans regularly save precious pesos, even skipping meals for the last few days before a game. Seeing them asleep outside the stadium, you are reminded of religious pilgrims: devout and unstoppable.

Brazilian striker Romario said that he never felt so scared going into a game as when he played Boca in La Bombonera during the South American championship Copa Libertadores. “I have played with Barcelona and Brazil all over the world in all the important stadiums but never have I experienced something like playing at La Bombonera against Boca Juniors. It is the closest you get to hell.”

“There are people who ask to be buried under the grass, which they put in their wills,” explains Miguel Angel Rubio, a reporter with Fox Sports in Buenos Aires. “I don’t think they are legally allowed to do that, you have to be buried in a cemetery, not a football pitch.”

So many ashes were being dumped on the field that it started to destroy the grass. “This is why the Boca administration began to think about a cemetery, the ashes ruin the grass. They [human ashes] are calcium, and when it rains, they turn into a solid—like cement,” says one club official who asked not to be named. “The ashes are bone; they are not like a light ash. So they start forming a coating that ruins the field.”

For the Boca Juniors Football Club, the human ashes are a problem. “Of course we banned this,” says Orlando Salvestrini, a team official. “But still there is always someone who keeps doing it, sneaks in. You can’t have a football stadium full of people throwing ashes around! There’s no order to it. So we decided—we have to organize this.”

In September, Boca Juniors announced a solution. A special graveyard exclusively for Boca Juniors fans including—they hope—their slightly mad king, Diego Maradona himself.

“We decided last year that we needed a cemetery for all these fans,” says Salvestrini, as he walked me through the fields of the new Boca Juniors Cemetery, tucked between gated communities and high priced condominiums in the suburbs south of Buenos Aires.

What does it cost to be buried amidst fellow Boca fans? For a simple urn the price is $600, while a proper tomb with seats for three goes for $1,200 (far less than a price to the World Cup final). But, Boca Fans worldwide, take notice and reserve prime space soon—the best seats in the house (under trees or near the Boca flags) are going fast. “We sold about 150 spots in the first month,” says Martin Stenner, the cemetery owner.

In the first month, various dead Boca superstars were transferred to the official team cemetery. Others were young fanatics paying $60 a month for three years to guarantee they would always be surrounded by the Boca vibe. “When the fans from River Plate [Boca’s eternal rival] come here, they always make some comment,” said a cemetery worker. “One said ‘hopefully it fills up soon and Boca is left with no fans.’”

The first stage of the cemetery is set to hold some 9,000 people, with an expanded phase that could max out the size of many regular football stadiums: 27,000 fans (3 each in the 9,000 plots). “This is a long term project, we still don’t know how fast it will fill up,” says Stenner. “But with Boca’s 65,000 official fans, we are shooting for 20%. That’s 13,000 right there . . . .” Then his marketing speech slipping in, he says, “We are only 25 kilometers from the stadium. That’s just 15 minutes on the highway.”

The day after he announced the cemetery, Stenner, the cemetery director, received a call from Caracas—a family of Argentine expats was calling. Could they transfer the ashes of a dead Boca fan to the Argentine cemetery? “Now we get calls from all over the world,” says Stenner. “Ashes are currently being shipped from the United States. They should arrive tomorrow.”

When the ashes arrive, a customized Boca Juniors religious service awaits them. The ashes (or casket) are draped in a yellow and blue Boca flag. The graveyard is flanked by rows of flowers, all in team colors. The Boca Juniors logo is everywhere—at the entrance to the cemetery, on a fountain, and then engraved onto every gravestone.

Even the religious part is all Boca. The Catholic deacon talks about arriving here as a union for all the fans; like Mecca, he says. The end of a journey. The Deacon describes life as a football match and says, “Here we are at the end of the game, all together.”

“I have been working in the cemetery business for many years, and I can tell you one thing: when you start talking about a cemetery, people move away, they say no they don’t want to hear it,” says Cristina Diaz, the General Manager of the cemetery. “But when you present a cemetery for Boca, the people love you. . . . I go to the stadium and people come up to me, they greet me. I don’t even know these people, but they know me. How’s this? I work at a cemetery and they are so nice to me.”

With the Boca fans solidly behind her, Diaz started launching squads of sexy chicas to distribute cemetery fliers and brochures inside the stadium. “We can’t do much publicity on the field because the players and the coach are so superstitious,” confides Diaz, who explains that selling funeral plots to fanatic football fans only works when the team is winning. “We announced this cemetery very carefully, when Boca was leading the division, when things were marvelous, when Boca had won various matches in a row.”

And if Boca starts to lose? “We pull back, so that they don’t associate us with Boca’s problems.”

“When Boca loses, we don’t push the product that week. The Boca fanatics don’t even want to talk,” says Martin Stenner, who said it took a few weeks to understand the fanatic fan sales cycle. “After speaking with two or three fans [after a loss], we quickly understood that they were in mourning. Not because a family member died, but because they lost versus River.”

While being buried in the team cemetery is regarded as cool, is the true Boca fan ready to be buried there in just any old box? Obviously, not. They need an official team casket. That’s where Fernando Garcia comes in. He runs Dieues, Argentina’s largest casket factory, which now churns out hundreds of Boca Juniors caskets, with a variety of models, each with the team logo emblazoned on the front.

“I saw that Boca had franchising for everything, so I thought, why not coffins? I met with the folks at Boca, we had lots of meetings, and at first they said no. They thought it might be rejected by their fans. Now it is well accepted; but at the time they were trying to sell key chains, coffee mugs, and t-shirts—and I show up with coffins.”

About the only negative comments heard about Boca’s football fan cemetery came from families of people already buried in the area. They imagined Boca’s legendary fans—known as “La Doce” (the Twelfth Player)—coming to party, trample the flowers, and destroy the peace. “I told them, no, don’t worry,” says a grave digger at the cemetery. “Boca fans are crazy in the stadium, but here they are respectful. Do you think that if we bury a Formula 1 driver his friends are going to come drive a racecar over his tomb?”

Crazy:lol:

[RedSonRising]

Thought I'd add this example:

http://www.aolcdn.com/photogalleryassets/fanaticos/942542/hincha-atletico-getty-2.jpghttp://www.aolcdn.com/photogalleryassets/fanaticos/942542/hincha-atletico-getty-4.jpg

Felipe Álvarez, a supporter of Colombian soccer club Atlético Nacional, got a tattoo of his team’s jersey that covers his chest and back.