May 20 – In what is surely one of football’s most bizarre transfers, a first division Bolivian professional side has signed up the country’s 54-year-old president Evo Morales (pictured) to play in midfield at a reported token salary of $213 per month.
Morales, a soccer fanatic, is due to make his debut in August, wearing the No10 shirt for the Sport Boys team based in the south-eastern province of Santa Cruz.
“He loves soccer and he plays well,” Sport Boys president Mario Cronenbold told Reuters. His salary is deliberately being kept low to reflect the South American country’s minimum wage.
Morales has played in several matches with journalists, union leaders and other world leaders. In 2007 he played at 6,000m (19,700 ft) above sea level in a protest against efforts to stop Bolivia playing its international fixtures at high altitude.
But this is different. He will play for about 20 minutes per match for Sport Boys but not in each game and Cronenbold brushed off questions about his fitness levels.
“As I told the president, jokingly, we are not putting the president of Uruguay on the field,” he said, referring to Uruguay’s 78-year-old José Mujica. “We are contracting a person who is in very good shape and who lives for soccer. We’ll send him a list of matches and he’ll chose which ones to play in.”
Morales has been president of Bolivia since 2006 and is favoured to win a second term later this year.
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