Outspoken Senator Liliana Rendon has re-entered the national debate over who should coach the Colombian soccer team by criticizing President Juan Manuel Santos for suggesting the appointment of a foreign coach.
Santos intervened in the affair earlier this week when he suggested the Colombian Soccer Federation should accept Gomez’s resignation and appoint a foreign coach with “new blood and new ideas.”
Rendon responded by telling El Espectador, “How can we [Colombians], and our president, doubt the abilities of Colombian coaches?”
She went on to say there were a number of coaches in the country who had had successful careers and deserved the opportunity, citing Leonel Alvarez, who was appointed caretaker coach on Friday, as an example.
The senator had earlier provoked an uproar when she defended the actions of then coach Hernan Dario Bolillo who resigned after hitting a woman in a Bogota bar, saying, “we [women] are very irritating, we are very stupid and manipulative and sometimes we provoke certain reactions.”