The possible renewal of Maradona is understood from politics (Sakal Bela,India)

Buenos Aires. - Many in Argentina ask what would happen with the renewal of the contract if the coach of the team in the recent World Championship in South Africa would be any other than Maradona. The reply is very clear and absolute: he would have no chance whatever to continue. Perhaps one of the few certain sentences of the president of AFA, the Argentinean Federation, told to this reporter in a coffee of the Rich zone of Sandton, in Johannesburg, graphs as never the reality: “He is very special, it is a different case from the others”, sustains the directive and it is in many senses.
The truth is that the renewal of Maradona’s contract is understood only from the politics. Since in 2009 the Government decided to withdraw the rights of the TV of the Argentinean football from the company Torneos y Competencias (TyC) to deliver it to the State channel 7 and Maradona accompanied the president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in a presentation act of the program “Fútbol para todos”,(Football for everybody) starting a new period for the television of the Argentinean league free of charge by the open TV, the Government took the ex player as political ally and decided to sustain him in the time, something they ampled these days, putting their own people in the International airport in Ezeiza to cheer the team that had lost nothing less but by 4-0 vs Germany in the quarters, having been fully over passed.
Meanwhile in any survey as to his continuity or not, wins the negative by 72% of the votes, when those who enjoy football give the opinion, Maradona wins ground in his possibilities to continue as National coach for another four years, even without questioning, at least officially, not even his collaborators as Alejandro Mancuso and Héctor Enrique, though they possess no former experience in the position.
How it is understood that a coach that almost is left out of the World Championship in an easy eliminatory, where he lost 6-1 vs Bolivia in the height of La Paz, having been completely over passed by Germany at the World Championship that he dared to challenge Grondona inviting the ex defender Oscar Ruggeri to the concentration when the latter is not accepted by the directive, or that he did not give the minimum place to the manager nothing less but Carlos Bilardo. He may not only continue in the position but may impose his criterion as he would have won the World Cup? It can only be understood from the politics.
Grondona is a recognized skilful directive. It is not casual that he maintains his position as the AFA’s president for 31 years and since a long time he is also the senior vice-president of the FIFA, the second man after Joseph Blatter. And if he does nothing for leaving Maradona out of the team it is because though he admits privately that the coach has not the necessary knowledge to continue, at the same time he knows that never the AFA nor the clubs received so much money from the TV as now from the state that quintuplicate the incomes from the private company TyC, who had the rights from 1991 and this is not all, the AFA aspires that with the new Media Act already voted by the Parliament, there will be a 33% of digital channels for the ONG, among which there is inscribed the footballistic institution. Tied as they are that the Government cedes them a channel and knowing that Maradona is protected by the Government, he prefers not to move anything to the contrary, playing with two fundamental things to help him thus the things change in 2011; Copa America is being played in Argentina (this contest has not been organized by Argentina since 1987 not winning any trophy since 1993 and that in the same year there are presidential elections. A change of government would leave Maradona without institutional backing and a Copa America lost at home, would leave the coach without plafond. Grondona knows that a four years contract, until the end of the Argentinean participation in the World Championship in Brazil 2014 is only a paper signed without too much value unto the pass of 2011 including of the six friendly matches that by the contract the Argentinean team will have to play in the second half of 2010, the first of which will be August 11 in Dublin vs Ireland (that in informal conversations intends to cancel) but there will be some with great risk, as one vs the new world champions, Spain in Los Angeles, in September and another vs Brazil in Qatar, in November.
The last July 3, when the Argentinean team was swept by the German in the World Championship, Maradona was seen at the later press conference in the stadium Green Point of Cape Town very low spirited close to renounce. Scarcely passed 15 days this Maradona who secluded himself in his house in Ezeiza, near the airport, together with his girl friend, Veronica Ojeda, had another spirit imposing conditions as not to accept any exit of his collaborators and he even allowed himself a typical movement of his instead of meeting with Grondona in the week to close his renewal, he preferred to travel to Venezuela, invited by the president Hugo Chávez, for different football clinics in this country, postponing for Monday the expected (and for many already resigned) meeting between the coach and the old directive. Some guess that Grondona will make what he did before in other time with César Luis Menotti in 1982: offering a lot less of what the coach wanted to earn to enforce his withdrawal. The majority believes that the reason of the renewal goes through clear politic interests of Grondona, and not so much wishing that Maradona continues. Grondona knows that the time is his best ally and he plays his cards. Maradona in change bets everything he has and knows that his only capital is to win the Copa America at home within one year. Too risky.