Walter Morales: Gerardo’s brother, official and president of Lobo Jujeño

When he took office as president of Gimnasia y Esgrima de Jujuy, Walter Morales began with the dream of any fan: to say that his goal is to see the club return to the First Division, as had happened in 1994 and 2005. He also emphasized that he wanted to modernize it, multiply the disciplines that are practiced on their properties and make management transparent. Despite the fact that he had integrated previous boards of directors, his arrival assigned to standardize the power of his brother Gerardo, the governor who these days became national news due to the brutal repression in different parts of the province of teachers and native communities that opposed the constitutional reform that he promoted, and later because he was chosen by Horacio Rodríguez Larreta to accompany him as a vice-presidential candidate in the Juntos por el Cambio internship.

Walter Morales led the only list that was presented in March of this year, and took office as the new president in April. Ten days later he traveled to the Ezeiza estate to visit the president of the AFA, Claudio Tapia, and to advance his management objectives as head of Jujuy’s Wolf.

In that meeting, defined as “enjoyable” in the halls of the AFA, “President Morales delivered a shirt in tribute to the world champions with the name of President Tapia and the number 10 on the back.” Beyond the protocol rhetoric, the real intention was to start – or strengthen – a rapprochement with the AFA that not only got the club, but the province in general.

It is an old account pending from Governor Morales: turning Jujuy into a preponderant province for Argentine soccer, a role that in recent years has been taken over by San Juan, Santiago del Estero, Mendoza and, to a lesser extent, San Luis. Venues where the finals of the different national leagues and cups are played, and where the National Team plays local.

The time he came closest to realizing it was in the middle of a pandemic, when the governor called the Minister of Tourism and Sports, Matías Lammens, and the president of the AFA to wait to play some tournament dates (not only soccer) in that province. , at that time with very low circulation of the covid-19 virus. The idea, for different reasons, never materialized.

In the blood. In addition to being his brother, Walter is one of the trusted men of a governor who made the heavy hand almost the motto of his government. In addition to the questions about the state violence that he deployed throughout the provincial territory, Morales received one in particular that was closer to nepotism than to the republicanism that he tried to install these years: according to a report by the NGO Ruido, he is the governor with more family members in public office in a province. He has 25, between directors or politicians, double the second on that list, Gildo Insfrán, from Formosa.

One of those relatives is his brother Walter, who in addition to being the president of Gymnastics, is the current head of the Provincial Institute of Games of Chance. Before, in the first term of his brother, he was the president of the board of the Institute of Housing and Urbanism of Jujuy (IVUJ).

But the government is not only present with charges to club leaders. For years it has been the main economic point of Gymnastics, which always has some tourist advertising on the front or on the back of its shirt. This year, on the back of each player, the “Jujuy, living energy” is read, a contribution that helps pay the salaries of the main players of the team, which in some cases reach two million pesos per month. The province went to the back because Banco Macro is now on the chest, the largest private bank in the country, owned by the Brito family, always interested in advertising soccer teams, especially from different provinces. A sponsor that is better understood when delving into the power relations of the clubs rather than their marketing strategies.