Tino Asprilla, forceful about Pablo Escobar’s alleged relationship with Nacional

The 80s brought dozens of South American soccer figures to Colombia to play in the country and the level of the local championship was very high. However, the influence of drug trafficking in this sport turned out to be too great.

The Cali Cartel’s relationship with América was very notorious, to the point that Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, one of its bosses, was part of the club’s board of directors. That caused America to be included for many years in the so-called ‘Clinton List’, which brought enormous economic and administrative problems.

The presence of one of the bosses of the Medellín cartel, Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, as an investor in Millonarios, was also very loud. That generated, years later, the intervention of the Government to the club, through the National Directorate of Narcotics, which took the actions of the heirs of the capo, discharged in December 1989.

Was there a relationship between Pablo Escobar and Nacional? Answer the ‘Tino’

One of the issues that has never been verified is the alleged relationship of Pablo Escobar with Atlético Nacional, a team that, in that decade, became the first Colombian club to win the Copa Libertadores, in 1989, with a roster made up entirely of players. premises, under the command of Francisco Maturana.

One of the idols of Colombian soccer in the 1990s, Faustino Asprilla, came to Nacional as a reinforcement in 1990 and remained there until 1992, when he was transferred to Parma. The ‘Tino’ denied that Pablo Escobar had a relationship with the club.

“That is pure lie. It never happened to me that any drug trafficker gave me orders to play soccer”, said Asprilla, interviewed in the YouTube space ‘La sala de Laura Acuña.

“I never had anything to do with it and that story that Pablo Escobar was the owner of Atlético Nacional is a lie. He didn’t touch me and neither did Cúcuta, they were the teams where I played in Colombia. Nothing like this ever happened to me”, assured ‘Tino’.

One of the most painful episodes in Colombian soccer at that time was the murder of Andrés Escobar, on July 2, 1994, days after scoring an own goal in the match between Colombia and the United States, in the World Cup that year.

Asprilla had a very good relationship with Andrés and he emphasized this in the interview. “I remember Andrés that he was a great friend, a great guy. He lived around the corner from my house, Aristizábal and I didn’t have a car and he always picked us up to go to training. He was very punctual and would pick me up at 6:30, but I would go down late at night and he would wait for me furiously because he was always late, he scolded me all the way. He always warned me that he was not going to go through me anymore, but he always picked me up, ”he assured.

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