By Juan Arango
For many teams in Colombia it is a term that is deemed worse than relegation.
For many companies it is a term that would seem like default or bankruptcy seem like an upgrade.
So for a club like Santa Fe, the prospect of finding itself on the Clinton List is one that makes anyone’s skin crawl.
So what is The Clinton List?
The SDNT (Specially Designated Traffickers List), which is better known as the Clinton List by many people as well as corporations that have been involved in business with the drug trafficking trade be it directly or indirectly.
This is an ever-reaching umbrella that has accused both guilty as well as innocent parties in a country that was so greatly impacted by this business in the past four decades. Parties were placed on this list due to either being directly involved or just having been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The list is published every year by the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control)
The executive order was given by president Bill Clinton bac in 1995 and was made in an effort to block corporations that were involved in the laundering of drug money and
Where it affects teams?
Maybe they don’t get the points deductions or the relegation punishment. But the Clinton List is synonymous with the deterioration of a club due to its inability to operate in a normal manner.
Although Cortuluá and América are the two examples of what may occur to a team once on the list. Santa Fe, if they are finally added on to that list will suffer a slow death, much like what América has been going through in the past few years.
One of the big inhibitors of being in this list is for a entity to not be permitted to have a bank account. For a club to not have a bank account is very complicated, especially with the multi-million figures that they have to handle. So how does a team receive he money for the selling of a player? Where does the money go? How can it be accounted for? Would you want to be associated with a club like that?
Financially, the teams are looked at as lepers in a world where football teams are are looked at as investments. What company wants to involve themselves with company that is going to take them down a slippery slope to financial suicide? There is not one multinational or mom and pop shop that wants to be involved with another party that will only lead you to fall into the trap of being guilty by association.
They do not want to be associated with individuals like Salvatore Mancuso, who came out the other day to say that the paramilitary had placed millions in the coiffures of Colombian football teams.
According to Colombian paper El Espectador one of the accountants of the Colombian Football Federation, Juan Bernal Vargas, was on Mancuso’s payroll. This accountant was mysteriously murdered in July.
Bavaria, company that produces Cerveza Aguila, walked away from Santa Fe after the news of their probable addition onto the List.
The Clinton List is not something that punishes a team right away. Yes, there is immediate damage. The problems really start to appear as time passes by when the money is not at the disposal and there is no true way to account for it and it gets lost under the couch.
There is going to be much more that comes down on Santa Fe. Just a shame that it has to be happening in one of their best campaigns of their 35-year drought.
