- Bolivian footballers are in a state of defencelessness due to a number of irregularities
- FABOL, Bolivia’s national player union, and FIFPRO have repeatedly denounced the situation in the country
- Breaches of contract, aggression, lack of protection and illegitimate sports courts among the most notorious shortcomings
Serious delays in the payment of wages, attacks and threats to footballers, lack of protection to resolve urgent medical situations and illegitimate sports courts are some of the reasons why players in Bolivia have long been living in a state of total defencelessness.
FABOL, Bolivia’s national player union, and FIFPRO have repeatedly denounced the situation in the country, for which the Bolivian Football Federation (FBF) has not given any satisfactory response.
The problem is not new: in 2020, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, FIFA had determined that it would establish a Normalisation Committee to intervene, although at the end of the pandemic the intervention was not rescheduled.
Consequently, earlier this year, FIFPRO requested FIFA to urgently intervene with the FBF. A complaint was also submitted to FIFA's Disciplinary Committee and Ethics Committee in June 2023 about irregularities in the FBF's decision-making bodies (the TRD and the TSA) and disciplinary and ethical breaches.
During 2021, the footballers, grouped by FABOL, carried out different protests to defend their most basic rights, an action that resulted in agreements signed with the FBF. To date, these agreements, which have been renegotiated on different occasions due to lack of compliance, are still not respected.
Currently only one professional club is up to date with payments. The remaining 15 owe two or more months' wages. In addition to these debts, several clubs also have debts with some footballers from previous years (2021, 2022, 2023), owing up to 14 months' wages. There is also non-compliance by clubs in the payment of various prizes related to participation in the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana.
"The most basic obligation in an employment relationship is the payment of salaries: it is not only a labour right, but a human right," says Alexandra Gomez Bruinewoud, FIFPRO’s Senior Legal Counsel.
"In Bolivia, most clubs do not comply with this fundamental obligation and this means that footballers are in a critical situation. This, coupled with the fact that the federation's decision-making bodies do not comply with the basic requirements of parity and independence, means that there are no guarantees and footballers are totally unprotected and at the mercy of the clubs. This is unacceptable and requires urgent intervention by CONMEBOL and FIFA. All the necessary steps have already been taken."
FIFPRO appeals to FIFA for intervention to assist footballers in Bolivia
The tragic case of Guillermo Denis Beltran
Colombian winger Guillermo Denis Beltran had joined Club Deportivo Real Santa Cruz at the beginning of 2023. On 22 March this year he tragically passed away at the age of 24 during a training session.
"He was training as usual and then he collapsed. They tried to resuscitate him but he died as he was being moved to a clinic," Real Santa Cruz director Adolfo Soria Galvarro told the press in March 2024.
The story behind the story is that Guillermo was owed four salaries and, team-mates told FABOL, he borrowed money from them to buy food. Beltran was not well fed and was not called up for training either. The day he was called up, he suffered a heart attack.
There was no doctor at the training camp to treat him, no defibrillator, no ambulance. The players themselves had to give him a cardiac massage and took him to hospital in their own car. They became stuck in a traffic jam. In this condition they arrived at the hospital, where he died.
Brutal attack on Always Ready footballers
On 31 March this year, top-flight club Always Ready lost at home to Independiente Petrolero and said goodbye to the possibility of becoming local champions. After the match, the players reported being robbed and brutally assaulted, both on the pitch and in the dressing room.
In the dressing room they were met by members of the club's barra brava (ultras), who had ransacked their belongings and stole money and mobile phones.
"How is it possible for them to enter when there is security?" right-back Diego Medina asked in the press.
In addition, the footballers were chased by armed individuals and had to pay for a police escort out of their own pocket because the club bus had left without them.
One player testified that Andres Costa, the club's president, hit him. No sanctions of any kind have yet been imposed on the club. Angel Fernando Costa, Andres' father and president of the FBF, is the owner and majority shareholder of Always Ready with 82 percent of its shares.
Defenceless
In addition to the extreme conditions in terms of wages and security, FABOL denounces the defenceless state of the players in the absence of bodies that meet FIFA's requirements for dispute resolution.
For example, the Dispute Resolution Tribunal (TRD), the federation's dispute resolution body for labour disputes between players and clubs, and the High Court of Appeal (TSA), the federation's appeal body for the TRD, are illegitimately set up. They do not respect the principle of parity and violate various FIFA rules. The TSA, whose president was unilaterally imposed by the president of the FBF, has no regulations and operates in an irregular and illegal manner.
Serious irregularities in the structure and functioning of the FBF also include the failure to update the TRD Regulations, and the drafting and approval of new regulations duly agreed with FABOL. Those made in the first half of 2024 were made unilaterally and contain an abusive wording that violates the rights of football players.
Likewise, the non-compliance with the Club Licensing Regulations leaves the institutions exposed to corruption, match-fixing and infiltration by drug traffickers.
"We want footballers in Bolivia to know that they are not alone and that FIFPRO will continue to work to ensure that the regulations are complied with and that the rights of football players are protected," FIFPRO Interim General Secretary Stephane Burchkalter said.
