Huachibato and the cold work of being a hero

One day after winning the title of Chilean football champion in a thrilling final, club officials Huachipato – representing the city of Talcahuano, in the Biobio region – announced that it was for sale. Through a public statement, Marcelo Ambrosio, Victorano Cerdà and Marcelo Pesci indicated that “the time has come to make room for a new process with new strength, new ideas and, above all, new energies.” For this reason, today we open the doors to exit from ownership and management of the club.”

A sign of the new era in Chilean football, the foundation culminates an era in which sports companies were used to create an industry that generated resources around the activity. Strictly speaking, the first champion of this format was O’Higgins de Rancagua, but its owner is Ricardo Abomohor, a leader linked to a long-established family in the history of national football, far from the profile of the new investor for the most part. Without roots in the game’s lore.

Huachipato was founded in 1947 by employees of the Compañía de Aceros del Pacífico, under the protection of the nascent development company created by the radical government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda. The goal was to contribute to the development of the country, which required steel to build infrastructure at a key moment of industrial expansion.

Like many other companies, it underwent privatization during the dictatorship and in 1981 the foundry began bearing the place name, Huachipato, coming from the Mapuche word for Trap for catching birds. In 2015, it was the turn of the sports club, which was no longer under the company’s guardianship, to be controlled by shareholders who had no emotional connection to the region, the company, or history.

This year has been particularly difficult for fans, mostly steelworkers, who have faced financial problems due to competition from heavily subsidized Chinese steel. That is why they went to the government to ask for special assistance to avoid bankruptcy, which would directly or indirectly affect twenty thousand people.

In the years of limited company, the club experienced more problems than joys. The two titles he achieved in 1974 and 2012, under the leadership of the company, contrast with the last two years, in which he had to fight, on the pitch and in the secretariat, against the risk of losing the category. The sports administration was linked to the most influential businessman on the field, Fernando Felicevic, who signed the best players to replace them with young promises that crystallized this season with Argentine coach Gustavo Alvarez.

Now that we have achieved success and a third qualification to the Copa Libertadores, the announcement of the departure of shareholders is not too surprising. The club has the best historical value, the dominant group has been linked to another, more popular institution – the University of Chile – and Chilean clubs that gain international participation usually collapse internally due to not having enough personnel to face two parallel competitions.

In the work imposed by the current rules, the sensible thing is to look for other teams to develop policies that this time, in an irregular tournament and with the failure of the most popular teams, managed to win. It is not a lack of affection. This is simply what the current model dictates.