Deportivo Cali remains in a critical situation, and not only in sports. This Friday, the club appointed its fourth coach of the year, Sergio Herrera, who will take charge of the team in the last 10 games of the professional squad this year, unless there is a miracle and it is enough to qualify for the semi-finals.
According to the criteria of
Herrera replaces Hernan Torres, with whom there was an agreement to terminate the contract after a campaign to forget. He managed nine games, of which he only won two, drew one and lost six. What exhausted his patience was Tuesday’s defeat in the Colombian Cup, 1-0 against Fortaleza, which fielded a substitute team.
The problem is not so much the Cup, but the more than latent possibility that Cali, if it does not improve, will go to the B. The three teams that are below in that table, Patriotas, Jaguares and Envigado, have already made a change of direction to try to straighten the course. Today, Cali is five points away from relegation, with ten games to avoid the biggest embarrassment in its history.
2024 relegation table
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And by next year, the savings I had are running out. In 2025, if Patriotas and Jaguares leave, as everything indicates, today, again, they would be seven points away from the risk zone, without knowing what could happen with the two teams that are promoted, which is a lottery. This year, for example, Fortaleza has done very well and is practically saved. On the other hand, Patriotas is stuck in last place, but with a chance of saving itself if it manages to win four of the nine games left.
This is how the relegation table would start today in 2025
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Five coaches and four presidents in four years
Cali continues to go from one situation to another, both in sports and administration. Since their last title in 2021, with Venezuelan Rafael Dudamel, there have been five coaches, not counting Herrera, who was recently appointed: Mayer Candelo, Jorge Luis Pinto, Jaime de la Pava, Hernando ‘Cocho’ Patiño and Hernán Torres have all passed. Only De la Pava managed to get the team into the quadrangulars and the points from that semester are what keep the team out of the relegation zone today.
In that same period, Cali has had four presidents: Marco Caicedo, Luis Fernando Mena, Guido Jaramillo and, since June 18, Humberto Arias, son of the director of the same name with whom the club had a glorious period in the late 90s, something that today seems very, very far away.
But the administrative problem has been going on for a long time. Cali’s liabilities have almost quintupled since 2017, when the balance sheets showed debts of 24 billion pesos.
Last month, the Superintendency of Companies announced that it had accepted the club’s restructuring agreement and announced that liabilities were at 112 billion pesos. This, after the attempt to convert it into a public limited company failed, something that had been approved at the end of April by 93 percent of the partners. The 15th Civil Judge of the Orality Circuit of Cali declared that action inadmissible.
Last week, the Supersociedades asked Cali’s creditors to present to the promoter appointed to lead the reorganization process, Gustavo Quintero. After that, the club has four months to negotiate with them and another four to reach an agreement.
In addition, the fights between current and former directors continue to mark the path of a team that is not getting better. On his social networks, Ernesto Roa, former director of the club between 2009 and 2012, asked for the resignation of two members of the board and said that they want to devalue Cali. “In 2023, Diego Quintero and Eduardo Calderón, with their teammates Guido Jaramillo and Eduardo Losada, purged a squad, sold and gave away young players and hired as if they were going to play a Master Cup. In the logic of these senseless and incapable leaders, they bet on bringing in players over 30 years old: Alex Mejía, ‘Rifle’ Andrade, Francisco Meza, Javier Reina and others,” said Roa.
“I don’t understand where they get the idea that we want Cali to be relegated, we have too many assets. With all due respect, we can’t compare ourselves to our local rival at the time of their relegation, who only had the sign,” Arias said in his defense to Smoke Free Zone.
For now, Cali, faced with the obvious displeasure of the fans, announced that it will not sell tickets for the match against La Equidad.
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