Juan Román Riquelme shocked everyone in the soccer world when he announced that he is running for vice president of Boca's opposition, which represented a severe blow to Mauricio Macri and Daniel Angelici, who were trying to hold control of the club.

A few hours before closing the electoral lists, Riquelme, the xeneize icon, has finally revealed the position he is facing towards the upcoming elections, on December 8th, which was keeping everyone related in the politics of Boca in suspense. Riquelme will be running for vice president in the ticket of Jorge Amor Ameal and Mario Pergolini. In case of winning the election, Riquelme would be in charge of the sports division of the club.

This is a huge setback for Macri's hopes of retaining the management of Boca, keeping in mind that all the polls indicated that a ticket with Riquelme involved would win the elections. Even without the former soccer player competing, for the official leading candidate Christian Gribaudo this situation was very complicated. Although the polls do not contemplate key factors such as the system managed by the ruling party and that could be a key aspect on Election Day.

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Riquelme's announcement came as a bombshell for the Macri play. Leaders of the PRO, the party that got Macri the Argentine presidency, already gave the election up for lost. The damage is no less felt for Macri and his Chief of Staff Marcos Peña, who believed Boca represented a shelter where they could rebuild their personal political project. In fact, yesterday morning the Chief of Staff was mentioned as a possible member of Gribaudo's formula.

The election was so relevant for the Macri team that the idea of Macri himself leading the list was considered but this possibility was dismissed right after the national election of October and 40% that positioned the president as head of the future opposition. This afternoon nobody ruled out the possibility of Macri appearing somewhere on the list.

Outgoing Argentine President Mauricio Macri hoped to returned to soccer politics to revamp his image.

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The news generated immediate consequences in the outgoing Argentine government. The Coti Nosiglia sector had already informed Angelici that they believed it was necessary to find another candidate instead of Gribaudo, on whom they had low expectations. From this group, they asked Tano to look for a candidate with greater consensus and even left the threat of a rupture latent. Nobody discards it.

Criticism on Tano appeared all of a sudden. It is said in the Macri circle that the president of the club was put in charge of the negotiation with Riquelme (something that the former soccer player admitted), but that he did not offer everything that the idol was looking for. The same thing as Ameal and Pergolini guaranteed.

The role of Peronism

While in crisis in the Macri movement, in Peronism they are exultant for Riquelme's move. President-elect of Argentina Alberto Fernández himself was not directly involved in the negotiation but he was aware of it and he let this negotiation follow its due course. The person in charge of bringing positions together between Ameal and Riquelme would have been Juan Cabandié, who became the operator of the President-elect.

The congressman is friends with the former soccer player (same as Sergio Massa as LPO informed, he was trying to boost his project) and worked hard to seal the agreement, although in recent days it was run by Ameal's request that he wanted the national politics to be as far away as possible. The final negotiation was closed with Cristian, Riquelme's brother.

The movement also caused havoc in Peronism. Víctor Santa María and Santiago Carreras, who days ago lowered their list in pursuit of the "unit" that Riquelme had claimed although they ended up playing with Angelici, which turned out in Ameal's veto. Riquelme's announcement, also promoted by Alberto Fernández, left them offside.

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In the next few hours, the list of how the ruling party will be integrated is going to be explained. At the moment this list will take as candidates Gribaudo and Juan Carlos Crespi, a friend of Riquelme. The thing is how many groups will integrate the list.

In the same way, it remains to see if José Beraldi will finally run for president. In recent days the trucking mogul had negotiated a unit with Ameal, but they did not reach an agreement. Although there were also negotiations with Beraldi to include him, close to Angelici now cling to keep him in competition to cause division in the opposition.