Peru league in chaos amid strike by players

Peru’s soccer chief Manuel Burga left the country for Switzerland on Monday with the national championship in chaos over a wage conflict.

There was a bizarre start to the championship at the weekend as some teams fielded junior players because the professionals were on strike over money owed by a majority of the clubs including the big two, Universitario and Alianza Lima.

Peruvian Football Federation (FPF) president Burga headed for talks with FIFA at the Zurich headquarters of soccer’s ruling body after appointing delegates to deal with the problems back home, according to media reports.

The players’ union SAPAF called the strike after rejecting a plan from the league organisers ADFP for clubs to refinance their debts.

SAPAF chief Francesco Manassero blamed the clubs, saying they had prevented a healing process in Peruvian football which has suffered years of underachievement at international and domestic level.

“They gave us no way out. If we let them decide the amount (of the debts) and how much they should pay us we’re going to be waiting until the end of time. We cannot allow the players to be mistreated,” Manassero said.

“Here it seems normal to owe four or five months’ wages and to want to refinance that in two years,” he was quoted as telling Blanco y Negro radio on Sunday.

“All this is the consequence of the clubs and the FPF’s apathy in not doing anything to resolve this conflict.”

SAN MARTIN CLOSURE

San Martin, who won the title three times between 2007-10 and are one of the few teams in good financial order, said they were dissolving the club because their players had joined the strike.

The San Martin board refused to send juniors to play against Melgar in the southern city of Arequipa, forfeiting the points.

“(On Monday we) will withdraw from the championship and the club will be closed,” general manager Alvaro Barco told the leading daily El Comercio’s website.

“We feel the players have turned their backs on us.”

San Martin president Raul Bao Garcia, who along with his board risks a life ban from football if the club withdraw from the league, said the squad were wrong to show solidarity with the union.

The chaos in the championship is bad news for Peru’s Uruguayan coach Sergio Markarian who has begun to bring some order to the national team.

Peru finished third at last year’s Copa America having failed to qualify for the World Cup since 1982.