Bolillo

While the global economy collapses, people in third-world countries such as Colombia receive  reassuring messages such as "we are well protected against any potential crisis in the short term". Of course, this is a reassuring way of saying that we count too little in the world so as to be affected. With the financial aspect duly covered, we are thus free to deal with the important issues. In Colombia, these days, this unavoidably means football. In fact, these days the FIFA U-20 World Cup is taking place in eight Colombian cities. We were convinced that tourists from all over the world would come to visit our cities, drink our alcohol, sleep (and dance!) with our women, watch some football, and leave some foreign money in the process. This, apparently, hasn't been the case, even if authorities at every level are doing their very best in welcoming visitors.

The football fever is so strong these days that we have almost forgotten that our former president reacts to everyday issues with insane rants on twitter. (In a side comment, it is worth saying that some weeks ago, his account was hacked; in an unfortunate---yet funny---choice of words he said that he had been penetrated by hackers.) With the young Colombian team doing reasonably OK, the spotlights are currently on Hernán Gómez, the coach of the professional national team. Mr Gómez's nickname is "Bolillo", which is the Colombian word used to refer to the baton used by policemen. In spite of this nickname---and apart from the vulgar way in which he expresses himself---until the last weekend we had no evidence of Bolillo's violent character. It turns out that last Saturday he got drunk and repeatedly punched a woman in the face. It is no clear what caused this reaction or who the woman is. Some say she's a disappointed lover, but who really cares? This guy is attacking women!

You will never be able to anticipate how public opinion in Colombia will react to this kind of introspective affairs. I purposefully say introspective because this is an unusual violent fact in an inherently violent country: we are quite good at killing ourselves. Violence against women in southamerican countries (and in Spain, I believe) is, sadly, rather common; the unusual thing is that this time it comes from famous people. Opinions were divided as whether he should resign to his job as coach or not. On the one hand, he did reasonably OK in last Copa América, and the qualifying round for the World Cup should start soon. On the other hand, this guy is attacking women! Surprisingly enough, he refused to resign for a day or so after the incident became public. What made him change his mind? A gentle phone call from the national team's main sponsor, who said that it would be inappropriate for the Bolillo to continue in charge of the team. The ironic touch is that the main sponsor is Bavaria, the largest brewery in the country (and subsidiary of SAB Miller). That is, the main provider of alcohol in the country (and as such, arguably the main indirect responsible for violence against women in the country) made Bolillo reason about his doings. How about that??