Rosario Central President Horacio Usandizaga Threatens to Kill All His Players

Sometimes footballers need a little extra motivation. Goal bonuses, win bonuses, that sort of thing. Just a little carrot to dangle in front of their noses to make them reach that extra bit harder. Argentina’s Rosario Central are a team in need of such motivation, as the once great club currently occupies one of the Primera División relegation spots.

But Rosario president Horacio Usandizaga hasn’t gone for what you’d call a positive reinforcement structure. Quite the opposite in fact. He’s threatened to kill all his players and coaching staff if they don’t avoid relegation. Nice.

This is a what Horacio Usandizaga made to Rosario fans on October 8th, and secretly filmed and made public by someone in the crowd.

Here are highlights of Usandizaga’s rant, “Central are going to get out of this situation, we are going to move forward. We are going to get out of this or I’m going to kill the … players, coaching staff and anyone else. If Rosario Central was going to fall I will kill all those sons of bitches, be they players or coaching staff. The players want to be paid one million dollars to escape relegation. I’ve never seen a million dollars in my life!”

Let’s give Usandizaga the benefit of the doubt here and assume he didn’t actually mean what he said. As well as being Rosario president, Usandizaga is also a politician. Which means he habitually tells people what he thinks they want to hear, even if he doesn’t mean a word he says.
But even assuming he’s not planning to slaughter his playing staff, this is still dangerous talk from Usandizaga. It wasn’t so long ago that angry Flamengo fans attacked their own players with home-made explosives in Brazil. So maybe this isn’t the best time to be advocating violence against underperforming players.