March 12, 2025
Argentinian soccer fans have organized themselves to march in defense of pensioners this Wednesday in a new protest against the government of Javier Milei over the cuts to pensions.
More than 20 different clubs in the country called on social networks to accompany the pensioners to Congress, after they have suffered repeated acts of violence and police repression.
Fans of Boca Juniors, River Plate, Independiente, Racing, San Lorenzo and other institutions will be present at this march, which has been repeating every week and usually ends with elderly people being beaten, injured and several arrests.
The initiative arose as a result of one of the pensioners, 75-year-old Carlos Dawlowski, being repressed in one of the protests while wearing a Chacarita Juniors club shirt. Dawlowski is is a well-known supporter of the club from the town of San Martín, in the province of Buenos Aires. And so it was that last week he was joined by a group of fans who identified with the ‘Tricolor’ insignia and clashed once again with the police.
Soccer fans defend pensioners from tear gas.
The pensioners are marching once again to Congress, but this time they are not doing it alone: today they are accompanied by the football team fans, who have decided to give them their support in the face of the constant repression they suffer every Wednesday when they demand the restoration of their social security and an improvement in their living conditions. Today the repression in Callao and Bartolomé Mitre,continued as the security forces repressed older adults, press workers, trade unions and football club fans with gas and rubber bullets.
This motivated supporters of other clubs will also gather at the Congress in defense of the pensioners, so rival fans, from the first and second divisions, will be seen united in the same cause.
The government’s reaction
In the wake of the massive mobilization that comes from soccer, the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, issued a series of warnings and said that “special measures” would be taken for the fans, whom she described as “barrabravas” (thugs).
“We are preparing legal measures, legislative changes. We already had the alert on Wednesday when it was the Chacarita fan club and we really had the first alert,” said the official in an interview with La Nación Más, and recalled that the government already has the right of admission in stadiums, which prohibits the entry of fans with criminal records.
Bullrich maintained that, in addition to the “barras”, the left, some Kirchnerists and 50 pensioners groups are behind the call.
“All the rest are political militants and we are not going to let them through. And we are going to find a special measure for the barrabravas if they start going to the protests”.
On Tuesday, the Ministry headed by Bullrich issued a press release stating that strict measures would be implemented to guarantee public safety.
soccer fans unite to protect protesting pensioners against police violence.
“It is recalled that any person who engages in behavior that affects security, participating in acts that generate excesses or disturbances with violence against persons or property, or who carries out any action contrary to the law, will be identified and detained,” the text states.
The threats of the rightist regime fell on deaf ears as the pensioners are marching once again to Congress, but this time they are not doing it alone: today they are accompanied by football team fans, who have decided to give them their support in the face of the constant repression they suffer every Wednesday when they demand the restoration of their social security and an improvement in their living conditions. In Callao and Bartolomé Mitre, the security forces repressed older adults, press workers, trade unions and football club fans with gas and rubber bullets. Several participants in the demonstration repeated the phrase of the late soccer player Diego Armando Maradona: “You have to be a real wimp not to defend the retired”. The struggle continues.