Jhon Viafara joins long list of soccer players marred by drug trafficking

Bogota — One year, seven months and ten days after the US Treasury Department linked Mexican defender Rafael Marquez ‘El Kaiser’ to drug trafficking, an extradition request from the same country on Wednesday deprived former Colombian international Jhon Viafara of his freedom for the same reason.

Viafara, who was a talented midfielder of the Spanish team Real Sociedad and the English teams Portsmouth and Southampton, as well as the backbone of the Colombian Once Caldas, who won in the Copa Libertadores of 2004 against Boca Juniors, was allegedly in charge of paying those who transported cocaine in boats and planes to Central and North America.

The director of the Colombian Police, General Oscar Atehortua, explained Wednesday, a day after the arrest, that Viafara was also in charge of coordinating the drug trafficking route of the gang from the Colombian Pacific coast to Mexico.

The ex-player, proclaimed best soccer player in the Americas by Conmebol in 2004 and from that year until 2007 a regular in the Colombian national team, was arrested in compliance with an operation supported by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Attorney General’s Office.

The case of Jhon Eduis Viafara Mina is not the only one in which a soccer player is caught out of place because of his links with drug trafficking.

On Aug. 9, 2017, Rafa Marquez, the showy captain of the Mexican national team and former Barcelona player was linked to drug trafficking by the Treasury Department, for alleged relations with drug lords and cartel activities in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Chile and Spain.

Marquez, a Mexican singer and twenty others were included in a list of alleged “frontmen” of a network led by drug trafficker Raul Flores, which operated in Jalisco and Mexico City, according to the US government.

The former Barcelona player had all his US bank accounts frozen, and his US property was placed under restriction by the US government.

But these scandals do not stop there.

From goalkeepers to strikers, those linked to scandals fill all eleven positions on the pitch and there are still men left for the reserve bench.

Almost 28 years ago, Rene Higuita, one of the most emblematic goalkeepers in Colombia, surprised the world, not because of a spectacular intervention between the goalposts, like his ‘El Escorpion’ trick, but because he visited, the now deceased, drug trafficker Pablo Escobar in prison.

He defined his action then as “an encounter of friendship.”

Higuita’s problems increased when authorities discovered that he had acquired a house that had previously been used illegally by drug traffickers.