- The quality of healthcare offered by Futbolistas Argentinos Agremiados (FAA) is well known in South America
- The player union provides free coverage for the member and their family
- FIFPRO highlights three cases of players who overcame extreme difficulties thanks to the action of ‘Obra Social’
Welfare organisations form part of the national health system in Argentina, providing comprehensive healthcare to workers and pensioners.
The distinctive feature of the country is that many of them are administered by the unions of each labour sector and financed by a percentage of the monthly salary, fixed by law. Both workers and employers contribute to that amount.
Argentinian player union Futbolistas Argentinos Agremiados (FAA) is no exception. Through its social welfare programme, it offers complete and free health coverage not only to its members but also to their family.
They can receive free care in different medical specialities at the FAA headquarters in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires or benefit from care in hospitals and health centres throughout the country, among many other facilities.
“The Argentinian union is an example of the services it has for footballers,” said Roberto Silva Pro, president of Peruvian player union SAFAP, in a recent interview with FIFPRO.
Take a look at three cases of footballers who overcame extreme difficulties thanks to the FAA’s ‘Obra Social’ programme.
‘They were always there for us on a human level too’
Brandon Obregon plays for Chaco For Ever, a club in the province of Chaco, located next to the border with Paraguay and more than 900km north of Buenos Aires. Today he plays in the Primera B Nacional, the second division of Argentinian football.
Last November, Benicio, Obregon’s seven-year-old son, was admitted to a local clinic with a high fever, vomiting, low oxygen saturation and his platelets dropping at the speed of light. The worst part? The doctors couldn't diagnose a child with multiple symptoms and a high-risk medical history, with three heart surgeries for a congenital heart defect.
“They told us they were going to give him a platelet transfusion. It was four in the morning and my wife and I decided to call Ana Maria,” says Obregon.
Ana Maria Spirito oversees FAA's Obra Social.
“It was the early hours of the morning and she still attended to us. Who attends to you at that time of night with a health insurance company? We told her that we didn't have a diagnosis, that we were being treated badly, that they were treating Beni badly, that they were telling us that there were things that were not covered by our plan. But the problem wasn't the money, it was that they wouldn’t attend to us properly and tell us what was wrong with him.”
Spirito reassured them, argued with the clinic about coverage and, within a couple of hours, had a medical plan available for the Obregon family to make an emergency trip to Buenos Aires. In the afternoon, after receiving two platelet transfusions to prepare him for the flight, Benicio was on his way to the Argentinian capital.
The social security organisation accommodated them at the Fundacion Hospitalaria, the same place where Benicio had been treated for his heart condition since birth. There he was diagnosed with Covid-19 and sinusitis.
He was given medication, but when the medication ran out, the high fever returned. It was then they discovered that Benicio had a type of bacteria that, in patients with his heart condition, causes endocarditis, an infection of the inner lining of the heart.
“It was 24 December but we asked the social services for a new transfer because his cardiologist and her team, who had been treating him since he was a child, no longer worked at the Foundation but at the Italian Hospital.”
The Italian Hospital is one of the most prestigious medical centres in the country. “There they confirmed the diagnosis and he was medicated intravenously for a month. It was a very stubborn bacteria that was hiding in his heart prosthesis, it was very difficult to detect it.”
Obregon and his family are extremely grateful for the care they received: “They were always calling to see how we were, if we needed anything. They got us a room just for Beni, they got us food, medication, hospitalisation, they made our transfers very fast knowing how long they usually take because of the bureaucracy involved. Sergio [Marchi, President of FAA and FIFPRO] even called us. They were always there for us on a human level too.”
The Obregon family had never used the union’s social security until, two weeks before Benicio was born, an ultrasound revealed his heart problem. They contacted the FAA’s headquarters as members and were told they would be called. That's when they met Spirito.
“Where we were, the necessary complexity didn't exist and they transferred us. Ana Maria became very attached. Benicio had a very complicated heart surgery, with an extremely expensive prosthesis. And the social services always took care of it. Because of his condition, he might have been sent to hospital for a cold. And she always told us to let them know, that they would take care of it.”
‘They treat you no matter if you're Messi, a River or Boca player’
Sergio Sagarzazu, now 37, was playing in 2023 for Sarmiento de Resistencia (Chaco), a team participating in the Torneo Federal A, the third division of Argentinian football.
It was 23 December and he was driving to his holiday home in Buenos Aires when he felt something get into his left eye through the slightly open window. Between 24-26 December, what had been a nuisance became unbearable pain. During those days Sagarzazu went to the doctor several times, always with the same answer: there was nothing wrong, a few eye drops would solve everything.
On the 27th, after spending a night in hospital with morphine for the pain, he saw a new ophthalmologist.
“He removed a small piece of leaf from my eye,” recalls Sagarzazu. The happiness of feeling much better was short-lived: a fungus formed in the time the leaf had been in his eye.
“I gradually started to lose my sight. By 1 January I could hardly see out of that eye at all. That's when my wife decided to call Ana Maria. ‘Don't worry, you're not alone. I'll take care of everything,’ she said.”
Sagarzazu was immediately transferred to the British Hospital in Buenos Aires, where he found himself “with an impressive medical team”.
After a number of tests, they detected what type of fungus he had. They changed his medication but the doctor confronted him with the truth: ‘What interests me least is your sight. Today, I have to save your life because you are at risk of this fungus literally eating your eye and going to your head’.
After intensive treatment, they controlled the fungus. But they couldn't eradicate it. The doctor gave Sagarzazu a surgical technique as an alternative. The first one didn't work because of the action of the fungus. Only the second operation worked.
It was three months of treatment that soon turned into six. Into nine. Into eleven. Sagarzazu was no longer in pain but he still couldn't see.
“Meanwhile, the union was with me the whole time,” Sagarzazu says. “Ana Maria and the whole Agremiados team were always by my side while I was in hospital, when I had my operation, accompanying my wife. They covered everything for the operation, the medication, the treatments, the tests, a separate room, the food... Everything. Always aware of what I needed, always on hand. One day Ana Maria got me special medication, prepared, in three hours. The doctor didn't know how she had managed it in such a short time. Getting it usually takes two days.
“They even gave me psychological assistance for the shock I was going through. I am still seeing Matias, a psychologist from the Obra Social.”
On 23 December 2024, Sagarzazu had a cornea transplant. He won't be able to play football again because of the risk of injury, but he is recovering his sight. Sagarzazu got the donor through Incucai, the state body in charge of organ donation and transplantation. But if he hadn't been lucky enough to get one in record time, the FAA's social welfare programme would have bought the cornea for him in the United States.
“It would have been almost impossible for me to do it, I would have had to sell things. In the end it wasn't necessary because incredibly a donor appeared, but when the social welfare programme told us that they would buy it, that we could relax, my family and I hugged each other and cried.
“What they do is impressive. They treat you no matter if you're Messi, a River or Boca player or one of us who is in a lower division. Not only because of the medical coverage, but also because of how everyone goes out of their way to make sure you have everything you need, you feel supported.”
'I always say that Anna Maria is our guardian angel'
In 2005 Claudio Verino was 19 years old, had played in a handful of matches for the first team of Union de Santa Fe and, in the blink of an eye, his life was turned upside down: his first son, Juancho, was in a critical condition a few seconds after being born.
“He turned purple, he was crying like a little calf,” says Verino. “Thanks to the union we were at the best clinic in the province of Santa Fe and a paediatric cardiologist was able to see him. Juancho was born with a heart defect. He had to be urgently transferred to Buenos Aires but at that time it was at least an eight-hour drive, we didn't know if he would arrive alive by ambulance.”
Verino contacted the person who was the link to the social security organisation in the province. She, Estela, called Spirito. In a short time a medical plane was at the Verinos' disposal.
“Now I see them all and give them a hug of gratitude, but at the time I didn't even know who the people who ran the union, the Obra Social, the people who worked there were. It was incredible that they acted that way.
“On top of that, there had been a very serious accident that day in Bariloche, in the south of the country, and the health services were allocated there. I don't know where Ana Maria got a plane from. Otherwise, we wouldn't have made it.”
The health insurance company gave them a choice of three top establishments. They went to the Favaloro Foundation, a world leader in cardiology. Juancho went straight to intensive care and Verino collapsed. “I thought I was dying of anxiety,” he says. A girl approached him: ‘I'm from the union. Let's have a coffee. Rest assured that he is in the best hands, everything is going to be fine’.
After eight hours they informed him that the operation had gone perfectly. But Verino's wife was still 600km away, recovering from the caesarean section. Because of the surgery she couldn't travel by plane to be with her son. “Ana Maria sent someone who picked her up at the door of the house and brought her to the clinic. I always say that she is our guardian angel,” Verino recalls emotionally.
Juancho was hospitalised for 21 days. Although they were staying with relatives who lived in the city, the health insurance company paid for the Verinos to stay in a hotel opposite the clinic so that they were just one street away from their son.
Today, at 19 years of age, he has undergone several catheterisations and open-heart surgery. “The union took care of everything,” insists Verino, who today plays for Juventud Unida in the fourth tier of Argentinian football.
“I'm not talking about a $5,000 operation; I'm talking about a $35,000 one. When they put the stent in, the doctor took me aside and said, ‘You have the best health insurance in the world, no one else wants to buy this kind of equipment’. My family will be eternally grateful to Sergio Marchi, to Ana Maria, to all the people who work at the union.”
