By Reinaldo Oliveros
Jun 29, 2024, 10:33 AM EDT
Bolivian goalkeeper Carlos Lampe He called for more state aid for the development of not only football, but sport in general in the South American country, following the 5-0 defeat to Uruguay in the Copa América.
“We also need the government to help, to set up high-performance centres available with gyms and ‘top’ teachers who help physically,” he stated.
These centers must be “available not only to soccer players, but to all athletes,” he said.
The goalkeeper recalled his time in national tournaments in sports disciplines such as basketball or taekwondo before football and said that “Support for sport in Bolivia is very low.”
Lampe also recalled that in the two years he lived in Argentina, when he played for Vélez Sarsfield and Atlético Tucumán, he saw how athletes prepare there since they were children.
“There the boys train in their clubs and in the afternoons they train strength, power with a physical trainer who pays them,” he said.
For the goalkeeper, the players have the responsibility to “grow and equate things a little more physically so that the gap is not so big as it is today.”
He added that it is up to the leaders to be in charge, for example, of looking for better infrastructure and insisted that the Bolivian State must also do its part with initiatives such as high-performance centers.
A complaint from Bolivia that has been going on for years
Several athletes from other disciplines have had to do collections, food sales and different campaigns to raise money to represent Bolivia in international tournaments, in the absence of almost zero state support.
With football, the fans are even more demanding precisely because of private sponsorships. that it has and that gives the impression that it receives more support than other sports.
For years, fans have been demanding that their team give them joy again like in the 1990s, in addition to a replacement that has not yet arrived, which has been criticized by historical figures of the Verde such as former World Cup players Miguel Ángel Rimba and Luis Héctor Cristaldo.
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