COLOMBIA’S G8

Success for Atletico Nacional and Santa Fe in the Libertadores and Sudamericana Cups, handed Colombia a clean sweep of South America’s two major titles for the first time in the continent’s history. 

With three of the quarter-finalists in this year’s Sudamericana Cup also from Colombia, and the national team having just celebrated four years in the top 10 of the FIFA world rankings, the country’s reputation as a continental heavyweight has perhaps never been stronger. 

Yet on the domestic front a storm is brewing and not all is well. 

Over recent months, a rebel group of eight club presidents have been holding meetings behind closed doors to discuss a strategy aimed at squeezing extra power and cash from their deal with league organisers DIMAYOR. 

At the heart of the “G8” club demands is a shake-up in how TV money is distributed among the country’s 36 professional teams.

Unlike the English Premier League, where the TV pot is divided roughly equally, or La Liga’s former model of privately negotiating deals between individual clubs, Colombia has opted for a far more unorthodox and controversial basis upon which to slice the pie. 

Currently, the Colombian league has a 20-team top flight and a second tier made up of 16 clubs. Yet broadcasting income is not divided along divisional lines. Instead, it is based on a club’s “historical importance”. 

Under DIMAYOR’s definition, clubs are split into two categories: a top-rung of 24 historical or Category A teams that each take an equal share of 90 per cent of TV income, and 12 minor clubs who divide the remaining 10 per cent. However, league titles, cup wins, fan base and TV audience do not count towards being a historical team. Rather, DIMAYOR’s criteria only requires a club to have served three consecutive years in the top flight at any point in the league’s 68-year history. 

In essence it hands a team such as Union Magdalena, who haven’t been in the top flight for 10 years, the same TV money as South American champions Atletico Nacional. 

Unsurprisingly, the big boys are upset and are demanding DIMAYOR disclose the total amount they actually receive in TV revenue. 

“We want to look at the signed contracts because it seems to us that this money isn’t being shared fairly,” says Deportivo Cali president Alvaro Martinez. “In Peru and Chile, economies that are pretty similar to ours, their biggest teams get four or five times more than what we receive.” 

As group spokesman, Martinez is the only one authorised to speak on behalf of the G8. But off the record, other presidents haven’t been so tight-lipped, with one telling newspaper El Tiempo: “We either organise ourselves better or we’ll have to set up a new league with another sponsor. We won’t have any problems finding this [sponsor] or a broadcaster for the games; the league can’t survive without the big teams.” In September, DIMAYOR held an extraordinary assembly. The G8 lost a vote that saw the old order retained. 

“I’ve no idea what is now going to happen to the G8,” DIMAYOR president Perdomo said afterwards. “At the end of the assembly I saw some very unhappy faces from the presidents of this group.” 

The majority have spoken, but those unhappy faces aren’t set to go away.

Carl Worswick

World Soccer, december 2016

THE EIGHT CLUBS

• Atletico Nacional
• Millonarios
• America de Cali
• Deportivo Independiente Medellin
• Deportivo Cali
• Junior 
• Deportes Tolima
• Once Caldas 

(Santa Fe are not included because the club’s president, Cesar Pastrana, has aspirations to be the next DIMAYOR president)