Argentina's smallest club triumphs with a little help from friends in high places

With a monthly budget under 90,000 US dollars and no more than three thousand supporters at their games, Arsenal de Sarandí is the smallest club in Argentina’s competitive Primera División. Nevertheless, for the first time in its brief 50-year history, Arsenal de Sarandí have reached the top of Argentine football, leading the division after four rounds.

How could this tiny club achieve such a feat, you might ask. Well, the answer could be related to the fact Arsenal are the creation of FIFA senior vice-president Julio Grondona, and their training camp was built with money from the FIFA Goal Programme.

Arsenal runs in the blood
Grondona loves the Arsenal team as much as the mind games in FIFA. In fact, Arsenal is a family affair. In 50 years, the club has only had a handful of top-level management heads: Julio Grondona in the beginning, then his brother, Héctor, and since 1998, Julio Grondona Junior, the FIFA vice-president's son, who is also the president of the National Team Committee inside the Argentine Football Association (AFA).

However, not all is a bed of roses inside the family: Gustavo, Grondona's nephew, was an Arsenal player until recently, when he was released for no more than sporting reasons. He felt betrayed by the decision and has decided not to speak again with Arsenal's president, his cousin Julio Junior.

Arsenal players get yellow cards, not red
After more than 40 years in the minor leagues, Arsenal gained promotion to the Primera División in 2002, and have managed to avoid relegation since then. This is despite the small size of the club, with just 50 full-time employees and 2,600 membership owners, who pay just 1.60 US dollars per month.

Since their promotion, the team have not had too many problems with referees. In their first year and a half in the Primera División, only two Arsenal players were shown the red card: no other team was treated so mildly. The two referees that dared to send off Arsenal players had a long wait before being selected to officiate at matches featuring the club again. However, some linesmen reappeared time and time again.

After four rounds of the 2007 Clausura championship, Arsenal enjoyed a two-point lead over second-placed River Plate, the most successful team in Argentinean football. The Sarandí team is a strong one, but many have no doubts that it received some blessings. Seven of the twenty teams in the Primera División have not been shown a red card during the first five rounds; of them, Arsenal are the one with the highest number of yellows – eighteen in five matches.

Friends in high places
Off the field, Arsenal have been fortunate too. In Argentina, the fixture list is not decided by a ballot, but arranged by the TV company who owns the rights to broadcast football matches in Argentina. That company, TyC, are the AFA (and Grondona's) partner until 2013. This has led to suspicions that the weaker teams were chosen to play Arsenal in the first round. Coca-Cola, one of the AFA’s oldest sponsors, has also put a little of its money into Arsenal this year.

Boca Juniors, probably the most popular football club in Argentina, have loaned some of their young players to Arsenal without charge.  Pablo Mouche, one of the stars of the Argentina's Under-20s national team, belongs to Boca, but plays for Arsenal. Coincidentally, Pedro Pompilio, the Boca vice-president is a stadium inspector for FIFA. Grondona placed him there: the question is though, did Grondona ask for something in return?

Helping good causes
In 2004, Grondona opened a new sports complex in Villa Dominico, near Sarandí. Villa Dominico and Sarandí are part of Avellaneda, the Buenos Aires suburb in which the sports leader has lived all his life.

The complex was rebuilt with a half a million US dollars from the FIFA Goal Programme. But, does Argentina really need such a donation to promote football, given that the game in Argentina is amongst the most developed in the world?

In Peru, Paraguay and Colombia, Goal Programme money was invested in country and jungle zones; in Argentina, the money went to a civilised place 20 minutes away from the country's Government House.

Well, it seemed that didn't matter to Grondona. Arsenal, his lovely little team, is authorised to train in that complex. For free. “This is my gift to the city I love most. I feel like Santa Claus” said Grondona.

Indeed he was.