Black and white portraits of a smiling young man cover the walls of the Argentine capital here and there. "Justice for Fernando", can we read on the posters, in capital letters. During the night of January 17-18, Fernando Báez Sosa, student of Eighteen-year-old was found unconscious on the sidewalk outside a nightclub in Villa Gesell, a seaside resort on the Atlantic coast popular with Argentines during the southern summer.
After an argument broke out between rugby players and Fernando’s friends in the nightclub, the young man was beaten by a dozen players. He died just minutes after arriving at the hospital.
"Rugby is an exclusive and excluding space which has operated, historically, as an incubator for" prestigious "men", Juan Bautista Branz, sociologist
The affair deeply touched Argentina, the country of the Pumas – the best team on the American continent – and caused a shock wave in Argentine rugby. Ten men were arrested, all members of the Nautico Arsenal Zarate club in the province of Buenos Aires. Between the ages of 18 and 20, nine of them were formally identified by surveillance videos and witnesses.
This is not the first time that Argentine rugby players have been involved in violent crimes and assaults. In 2006, a youngster was beaten to death by three players from Corrientes (in the north of the country) on a Brazilian beach. The trial of the alleged murderers has still not taken place. In 2016, also in Brazil, four Argentinian rugby players broke the jaw of a policeman after leaving a nightclub.
Male chauvinist violence
“Rugby models strong, muscular, imposing bodies. We promote physical overpower in front of the other (…) Subjugating another man by violence is something that has historically been built and has become legitimate in sport and outside sport, says Juan Bautista Branz, sociology researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet, an Argentine government body) and author of the book Real Machos. Masculinities, sport and class in Argentina (Mascaro, not translated). Those who do not pass these “virility” tests are punished, called “putos” (Fags). "Fag ”referring to the“ non-man ”, one who does not correspond to the dominant values: heterosexuality, virility, courage, physical strength. "
In a country where macho violence causes feminicide every 27 hours on average, Argentine rugby players have also been implicated in several scandals of gang rapes in recent years, without these cases, for the majority of them, leading to convictions. At the end of 2016, at a party to celebrate the victory of a local team in the province of Mendoza (in western Argentina), a young woman said that she had been raped while unconscious. After a year and a half of trial, the six accused were all acquitted for lack of evidence. On January 14, the University Club of La Plata (province of Buenos Aires) suspended several players accused of having circulated intimate photos and videos of young women without their consent.
