The FIFA corruption case has three Argentines involved, Alejandro Burzaco, Hugo and Mariano Jinkis.
Alejandro Burzaco is the president of Tournaments and Competitions (TyC) who has always had a good relation with controversial and late AFA leader Julio Grondona, and thanks to which he eventually managed to control all of the national football television broadcasts.
Torneos y Competencias is half-owned by the Clarín Group, and partners with the media giant in the previous management of local football rights on television.
Burzaco, a River Plate fan, is also the brother of Eugenio Burzaco, the head of Buenos Aires Metropolitan Police force under mayor and PRO leader Mauricio Macri. Eugenio additionally served as the security director in River until he was forced out in a scandal related to the relationship between directors and hooligans.
The Burzaco’s power in the football business began alongside late AFA ex-president Julio Grondona. Before television rights were taken over by the national government under the Football For Everybody brand, Alejandro was part of the «goal snatching» which took place under Clarín, with fans forced to pay to watch live games.
Despite having lost the rights to broadcast football matches in 2009 his close relationship with the AFA continued on good terms due to the fact that he remained in charge of the foreign transmissions and the production area.
The TyC chief most recently played a prominent role in the abandoned Superclásico between Boca Juniors and River Plate, interrupted due to an attack on the latter’s players in the Bombonera. Burzaco was seen on the pitch pleading with the Conmebol overseer to let the game continue, although his request fell on deaf ears.
It was subsequently the Torneos y Competencias cameras which captured ‘Panadero’ Napolitano carrying out the pepper spray attack, along with various accomplices. Before Boca president Daniel Angelici went to Paraguay to hear the club’s punishment, Burzaco handed him the still-unseen footage to try and reduce the sentence.
«Go to Paraguay with this and say you have all of them identified. We will give it to you before it goes on air so you can use it in your favour,» Angelici heard from the executive, and Boca did indeed obtain a much lighter sanction than first feared in the attack’s aftermath.
Hugo Jinkins is the owner of Full Play company and holds the rights of the broadcasting for most Southamerican teams and some of The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf). He is also in charge of the South American preliminary rounds, the 2015 Chile American Cup and the Sub 17 South American to be held in Paraguay.
Mariano Jinkis, Hugo’s brother, is Full Play’s vicepresident. In 2004, he managed to keep the Ecuadorian League matches transmissions after a polemic negotiation.
The three of them have positions in the FIFA Sports Marketing department and are accused of paying 150 million dollars in bribes to obtain mass media and commercialisation rights for international tournaments.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald