Chaco
Governor Jorge Capitanich publicly regretted and apologized on Thursday for the
major embarrassment caused by the suspension of an Argentina-Brazil friendly
match scheduled for Wednesday night when the stadium floodlights failed.
Governor
Capitanich publicly apologized for the embarrassment
The
Brazilian press mocked Argentine organizers and said that the “Super duel match
of the Americas” turned into the “Super embarrassment of the Americas”.
The
teams, picked only from domestic leagues, were due to meet for the second time
in two weeks after Brazil won 2-1 in the first match of the “Superclasico of
the Americas” doubleheader in Goiania on September 19.
The
players took the field and lined up for the anthems but Chilean referee Enrique
Osses delayed kick-off until full lighting could be resorted after a generator
failed. The teams spent more than half an hour on the pitch warming up and
chatting among themselves until they were led off again.
With no
back-up generator available in the vicinity, Osses abandoned the match an hour
after the scheduled kick-off, embarrassing the Argentine Football Association,
who had organised the match in Resistencia, capital of Chaco.
AFA
sources said no new date was immediately available for the match since the
international calendar was packed until the end of the year.
Governor
Capitanich said the fans would receive refunds and announced an administrative
investigation into the whole incident.
Capitanich
made the announcements next to Omar Judis, head of the province’s power company
who blamed the failure to poor material in cables and the control board.
“All the
tests during the previous week could not anticipate what happened”, said Judis.
Meanwhile
Brazil had its own less publicized embarrassment when the country’s power
corporation Electrobras electricity provision failed in five states and for
several minutes, reaching distant cities as far as Rio do Janeiro and Curitiba.
According
to the official report from the Brazilian regulator a peak of consumption
‘misbalanced’ the normal power supply from the huge Itaipu hydroelectric dam,
causing problems at a distribution centre in Foz de Iguaçu next to the
Argentine and Paraguayan borders.
The
blackout hit the states of Parana, Minas Gerais, Rio do Janeiro, Acre and
Rondonia, mainly in metropolitan areas. Power was restored half an hour later.
Unrelated
to the incident in north Argentina that forced the suspension of the super
match, Brazil has a vulnerable power grid and major blackouts such as that
occurred Wednesday night are not uncommon.
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