“With friends like you, Atlético does not need enemies”

Jesús Gil did not shrink before anyone. Soccer made him good friends, but also a long list of controversies. In previous chapters of this series, his relationships with Atlético's players and coaches and with Real Madrid, his fiercest rival, were valued. In this one we will remember some of the most bitter conflicts that he had with the referees. The president was seriously hurt, especially in the first years in the box, and did not stop before anyone when he had to protest. In exchange he suffered severe punishments.

With Ángel María Villar, president of the Federation, and with José Plaza, president of the Referees Committee, lived direct confrontations. Without subtleties. “They are all gulfs. There is a mafia in arbitration. The competition is adulterated and prostituted. You can not do anything. Villar is the boss and he is a cancer for soccer ”. The acrimony was escalating and the situation became tremendously complicated to the point that the referees came to propose a boycott of Atlético. In the 90-91, some members refused to whistle the rojiblanco team while Jesús Gil was its president.

In the previous season, the president already had a heat with Mazorra Freire after a derby against Madrid at Calderón. He called him a “thief” and a “scoundrel”, He said that “he looked like a Madrid player” and that his performance had been “outrageous and disgusting” and “the last tribute to Plaza”. The referee said, days after that we had to “stop Jesús Gil's feet”, who was fined a million pesetas. There were more sanctions and more protests. In fact, for the Copa derby, Gil came to ask for a foreign referee and he even raised his partners by means of a referendum the possibility of not showing up.

The temperature shot up that summer of 1990. On July 19 the Football Assembly was held and Jesús Gil appeared to address the referees: “All of you would have to disappear athletically.” The fuss was such that, at first, more than a dozen referees refused to referee Atlético in Liga.

And it was more. Athletic-Atlético in September '90 unleashed Gil's anger again. The Madrid fans lost 2-1 and the president blamed referee Socorro González and Urizar Azpitarte for putting pressure on him to harm Atleti. The club asked for the match to be repeated “as its result was considered totally fraudulent, with proven manipulation” and the perpetual disqualification of Socorro González.

“From the Assembly they have me sworn”, “the referee was predisposed”“Urizar transmitted the instructions to Socorro because he is seeking the presidency of the arbitrators,” Gil said. The matter reached such a point that the president called a meeting of partners in the Palacio de los Deportes to propose the withdrawal of Atlético from the competition. He even considered provisionally leaving the position: “I'd rather die than laugh at Atlético.” Atlético did not withdraw and Gil was again fined. And again to put offensive messages on the Calderón video scoreboards, as a reaction to the arbitrations, in this case of the basketball after a Real Madrid-Atlético Villalba.

“The Real Madrid chamber referees have placed themselves at the service of Barça”, “They have to win the League anyway,” was his most repeated message in that 1990-91. And in the spring the plants came. Díaz Agüero refused to whistle Atlético-Mallorca and Peraita Ibáñez did the same with Atlético-Cádiz. In between there was a game in Zaragoza, led by Jiménez Moreno, to which Gil sent a letter: “With friends like you, Atlético does not need enemies.” A file was opened to the President that served to lessen the anger of the referees.

The list of arbitrators that he disliked is extensive. Díaz Vega, Martín Navarrete (“He is unpresentable and would have to be retired, but he continues because of his private business”), the aforementioned Mazorra, García de Loza, Brito Arceo, whom he called “chalao” and sent the psychiatrist: “In the United States it is normal, like being sent to the dentist. Here it looks bad to be recommended by a psychiatrist. ” On the return of summer he had another incident with López Nieto, who replied fiercely: “It looks like an anthropomorphic primate by its appearance and its mental sharpness”. At the end of that year he had it with Ramos Marcos, “more Madridista than the shield”, and ended up punished and disabled, although he was granted an amnesty.

Years later Ansuategi Roca also suffered from the anger of Jesús Gil. And Andújar Oliver. “He looked like a five-year-old boy with a revolver in his hands. I don't know if he was mentally prepared to whistle that game, “he dedicated to him after a 5-3 at the Camp Nou. Another file was opened and he was again disqualified, although he was dropped due to lack of form. Andújar said he refused to whistle for more Atleti games, as Martín Navarrete, López Nieto and García de Loza had also done in recent years.

But Jesús Gil was clear where he should point in his attacks: “Everything comes from the fraud of the elections to the presidency of the Federation, where there was vote buying. Villar promised to be good to the referees and that's why they voted for him. The organization is fraudulent, it causes me disgust, and I can't take it anymore because I'm gambling a lot of money. ”

And if in Spain conflicts happened very frequently, in Europe the most controversial case came, that of Michel Vautrot. A frontal collision from which the president was disabled and could have been worse, since Atlético was feared a punishment. The events date back to UEFA 89-90, first round. Atleti beat Fiorentina 1-0 in the first and second leg, the match led by Vautrot, again 1-0. The rojiblancos, who suffered the expulsion of Goikoetxea in the second half, fell on penalties. And Gil exploded.

In the first statements, he limited himself to calling him “landlord” and that he already smelled bad refereeing. But in Tablero Deportivo, on Radio Nacional, it was unleashed: “I was not surprised by arbitration at all. It's not that I'm a ladybug, it's a fagot. I know very well that after we were eliminated that referee The Italians looked for him a blond boy with blue eyes “.

UEFA asked for explanations immediately and in November made him testify in Zurich before the Control and Discipline Committee. “I have not come to Switzerland as an inmate or to be tried, but to report to UEFA, with full reports, the manipulation of soccer, the preparations for certain matches of the competitions, “Gil said at the entrance. He was punished with two years of disqualification.