Edwin Pavón, the coach of the Honduran soccer team Atlético Olanchano coach (pictured to the right) must have had a bee up his butt after his team's 2-0 loss to Hispano over the weekend.According to La Prensa, coach Pavón was interviewed after the game by Cinco Deportivo and spoke against the José María "Chema" Martínez, coach of the opposing team, saying he was a homosexual, a drug addict and a corrupt man.
In the interview, which has since been uploaded to YouTube, a reporter asks (at the 1:45 mark) "Before the interview you mentioned the fact that there are people who drug themselves - Are there drugs in our soccer, as someone who is up close to it?"
Pavón replies: "Yes, there are drugs, and at the directors' level, there is homosexuality, corruption, there's everything, and there are people like Edwin Pavón who is a dummy, not smart, who has problems and defects as everyone else does, but that's the private life of a person."
So far, it seems a coach who is angry at himself just off a loss, trying to deflect criticism and saying that others also have faults (and, yes, bunching up homosexuality with all the other bad things he says exist in soccer).
La Prensa, though, says that later Pavón said that his comments were a direct reference to coach Martínez' conduct off the field.
"I challenge José for both of us to publicly go to a lab and I'll pay the tests and I hope he is not surprised when the results show that there are traces of drugs in his blood..." Pavón said, "Everyone in Comayagua knows who 'Chema' is, that he has to go to a clinic and stay for 7 to 10 days in detox."
Speaking to La Prensa the next day, Martínez made sure to note that he could not be gay because he'd already fathered ten children and denied any drug use. He told the paper that he'd be willing to have blood tests done.
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1 comment:
I don't follow sports, but my boyfriend is from Honduras originally (half Hondo/half Mexican-American) and homosexuality is very much considered anathema there and a very serious insult. I think it springs partly from the nation's strong Catholic roots. In any case, my bf was part of the gay underground down there before leaving the place for good after witnessing a serious incident of police brutality. Like in many countries there is definitely a gay rights (HUMAN rights) fiasco going on down there.
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