Tiros Libres: “CarToon” Violence

By: Christian | September 26th, 2007

River Toons

* The official River Plate website has just posted the debut of River Toons, a new animated series created as part of an awareness campaign that says NO to racism and violence in football. The first episode features the squad traveling by bus from their training ground at Ezeiza, near the international airport in Buenos Aires, to the Monumental. Future videos will appear online, as well as on the giant video screen that sits behind the main terrace at the stadium prior to the start of each game.

Click here if you can’t see the video below.

We all know about barra bravas and crowd violence in Argentina, so it’s nice to see the club recognizing the problems openly, but I wonder what the effect of a bugged-eyed, 3D, slightly scary Fernando Belluschi will actually have over time, and whether its well intended if slightly naive message will be taken to heart. Regardless, River has found one way to combat these nagging social ills; it’s certainly more creative, not to mention cheaper and easier, than handing out DVD’s.

* And it seems River Toons couldn’t have debuted soon enough, as just today it was announced that this Sunday’s match between River and Rosario Central at the Monumental has been rescheduled to 1:30pm ET, two hours earlier, than originally planned. Is it because of the continuing power struggle between sections of Los Borrachos de Tablon, or some kind of bad blood between River and Central fans that lead to the move? Nope, it just turns out that Boca Juniors will be traveling on the same day to Rosario to face Central’s eternal rivals Newell’s Old Boys; that match has been moved ahead 40 minutes to 6:10pm ET. To avoid potentially ugly scenes between Central and Newell’s fans crossing paths on the highways between Rosario and Buenos Aires (an all too common occurrence), the decision was made to change the starting times to prevent such scenes from happening. No word yet on whether a Central or Newell’s Toons series is in the works.

* Finally, who could have been responsible for such an obvious lack of judgment which could have potentially endangered fans? Well, according to Carlos Bilardo, the fault is to be laid squarely at the feet of the Argentina Football Association (AFA), and specifically its president, Julio Grondona. In an angry tirade given during an interview with the newspaper La Nación, the former national team coach, who lead Argentina to its 2nd World Cup victory in 1986, sounded off on the “sorry” state of the game, warning that “if there isn’t a change soon, Argentine football will fall apart. It’s a disgrace.” You can read the story here.