In his interview with Página/12, the Chilean president showed his soccer side.
-Your government has just promulgated the professionalization of women’s football. What value do you attribute to that decision?
– I think it’s tremendously important. It is a joy to have enacted this bill. I was recently with Maca Sánchez, a soccer player from San Lorenzo, precisely a team for which I have a good affection for being the club of players like Pipo Gorosito and Beto Acosta who gave me so much joy. Maca also told me about the experience they are having in Argentine soccer. You go ahead, but nevertheless some clubs have found requirements to not fully comply with the spirit of the law. It is absolutely ridiculous and shameful that women are not recognized for their work in the same way as men.
– What place does football have in your life when you have a moment for yourself?
– A good president, from my point of view, is not the one who is busiest, stuck in contingency, but the one who creates the best conditions to be able to reflect and decide based on the common interests of a people and that requires having certain spaces of relaxation and cultivation of the spirit and soul. For me, literature, music and football in particular, are tremendously important. In two more hours I will be watching the classic between Universidad Católica and Universidad de Chile. I am a disciple of the teachings of Marcelo Bielsa, whom I have deep respect and admiration for.