The day they captured the legendary Bobby Moore in Colombia
El tema causó revuelo político y judicial con eco internacional. Al capitán de la selección de Inglaterra, Bobby Moore, lo detuvieron en Colombia por el presunto robo de un brazalete de oro, esmeraldas y diamantes. Memoria de un episodio que puso en el foco de las noticias a Bogotá, a escasos días de la realización del mundial de fútbol de México 1970 que ganó el Brasil de Pelé.
Thirteen days after the initiation of the World Cup, with the purpose of playing two games in height in Bogotá and Quito, on May 18, the England team headed by his coach Alf Ramsey.In the prelude to the defense of the title achieved in 1966, the delegation of the current world champion was staying that Monday at the Tequendama Hotel.From the legendary Gordon Banks or Bobby Charlton, to the scorer Geoff Hurst and Captain Bobby Moore.Before retiring to the rooms, some players went out to tour the hotel surroundings, and on that walk began a judicial novel that was written in the football memories.
Inadverted for passersby, Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton entered the Green Fire Jewelry (Green Fire) and asked some articles.Moore was interested and admired a 50 grams of gold bracelet with twelve emeralds and several diamonds.In the end they bought anything and continued their walk through the hotel lobby.But in a matter of minutes the stir was armed.The employee who attended the players lit the alarms for the disappearance of the bracelet, and the owner of the jewelry store, based on the testimony of the seller, told Bobby Moore of having kept him with a dissimulation in the left pocket of his bag.
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Some police units went to the call of the Green Fire owner and the players agreed to be requisitioned without news.The incident went to the gossip, but in the course of the following hours the issue mutated from scandal to judicial complaint.In the Sports Delegation there were no constraints and on Wednesday, May 20, the England selected faced its similar Colombia at the El Campín de Bogotá stadium, at stake that ended with the world champions a win by 4 to 0.The West Ham midfielder, Martin Peters opened the account when the game had just three minutes and extended the score in minute 38.
In the second stage Bobby Charlton scored at 10 minutes, and put concrete figures Alan Ball seven minutes from the final whistle.Alf Ramsey's team, who led the English team between 1963 and 1974, with Gordon Banks, Brian Labone, Geoff Hurts and Bobby Moore, overwhelmed the Colombian eleven.The four goals against them fit Otoniel Quintana, and that day they played other historical selected such as Arturo Segovia, Hermenegildo Segrera, Óscar López, Gabriel Hernández, Óscar “Pacho” García, Alfonso Canon, Alejandro Brand, Jorge Ramírez Gallego, Víctor Campaz and GilbertoLeather.Master Alfredo Arango entered Víctor Campaz.
After the failed tie against Brazil, Paraguay and Venezuela, with just one game won, another tied and four losses with the Guarani and the Navy of Pelé, Tostao, Gerson, Jairzinho, Rivelino and others, the National Team was not difficult rival for theEnglish.That defeat 4 to 0, without mitigating, marked the end of the sports process that began the former player and technician Francisco "Cobo" Zuluaga and rounded the Paraguayan coach César López Fretes.The following year, he took the reins of the selected Todor Veselinovic, who gave way to the Yugoslava school.That game against England marked goodbye and the beginning of a new process
Instead, for the English team it was a training match, and ended its preparation by defeating Ecuador in Quito by 2 to 0.The World Cup event in the Aztec country was agreed to start on May 31, and the delegation could travel, via Panama, forgetting the scandal that the jewelry owner and its bracelet wanted to form.But based on trust, there was consensus in the delegation not to change the itinerary that included a scale in Bogotá and final trip to Mexico City.On May 25, 1970, eight days after his debut before Romania's team in Guadalajara at the Jalisco Stadium, the English team spent the night in Bogotá.
Then came the surprise.The judge of criminal instruction of Nariñense origin Pedro Dorado, ordered the arrest of Bobby Moore, and the captain and emblematic 6 of the English team was arrested by two DAS detectives and taken to a police station and then to a dungeon.As Germán Zarama de la Espriella narrates it in his book "I started dancing the blue ballet", given the seriousness of the matter, the first required to find solutions was the president of the Colombian Football Federation, Alfonso Senior, who could not avoidthat Bobby Moore remained detained while the rest of the team made the traffic agreed to Mexico.
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The interrogation of Bobby Moore began when the official translator of the Foreign Ministry of Colombia was present and, around seven o'clock at night, the golden judge ordered that Bobby Moore returned to a dunge du.At that time, the national and international press was already on the news.Alfonso Senior spoke with the golden judge to make him see the mistake of driving Moore to a dungeon full of thugs and offered his home as a preventive detention of the player under his own responsibility.As the judge was reluctant, they called the director of the DAS, Etilio Leyva, to contribute his point of view before the mess.
Leyva convinced the judge to negotiate, but imposed that at eight in the morning the player should be in his judicial office, and that two DAS detectives accompanied him to the home leader's house.That night, Bobby Moore had dinner with Senior and his daughter Vicky and, as it gave the chance that one of the two detectives, of Caribbean origin, was birthday, Senior let him look at his bar "Assortment of Liquors".The next morning, when Moore got up and accompanied by Senior they went down to the first floor, asleep on the carpet were the two detectives with the empty bottle.The aforementioned Germán Zarama says that they also assaulted the kitchen fridge.
While detectives snored, senior and Moore had breakfast and then the player went out to a nearby park dressed in a millionaire sweatshirt.That morning the prominence was the photos in the first page of the newspapers, the fuss on the radio, the first planes of Bobby Moore among the agents, and the consolidated judicial chronicle with the details of the scandal.Luis de Castro and Isaías González de El Espectador had three days of headlines to six columns with the judicial care, the version of the employee, the indignation of the owner of the jewelry, and the political and international context that was formed as a result of the newsBobby Moore arrest.
English Chancellor Michael Stewart sent a message to his similar Colombia Alfonso López Michelsen to emphassomething that could do to ensure that the case is resolved as soon as possible ”.There was no lack of those who came to protest against the Colombian embassy in London.Even the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the accredited leader of the British Labor Party, Harold Wilson, evidenced the interest of English society so that the Moore scandal in Colombia was soon resolved in Colombia.
Meanwhile, the captain of the English team arrived on time to meet him with the golden judge, assisted by lawyer Vicente Laverde who contributed the British embassy in Bogotá.Again the version of Employee Clara Padilla and that of Bobby Moore who admitted that if she had entered the jewelry store because they were looking for a gift for Bobby Charlton's wife and who observed the bracelet of discord.The employee Ripotó to say that she had seen Moore throw her out of her pocket.Then the lawyer Laverde requested the reconstruction of the events, Moore put his selection dress again, and the jurist focused his defense on warning that the jacket did not have pockets.
Although the issue seemed resolved, the golden judge did not give up and ordered Moore to return to Alfonso Senior's house.The British Foreign Ministry declared alarmed, the matter took the state of state and reached the office of President Carlos Lleras Restrepo.The elected president Misael Pastrana Borrero was also consulted who was two and a half months after assuming the State Headquarters.And the movie was repeated.Bobby Moore at the house of the president of the Colombian Football Federation, and the press in full, such as Hive, attentive to the minimum movement of the footballer and in the game of public statements and accusations.
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With the signing of a commitment act for the English player to appear at the Colombian Consulate in Mexico to continue the diligence, the golden judge finally yielded.At noon of the third day of media frenzy, Moore was free, and that same afternoon he traveled to the Federal District where he was paid reception from hero.The boos did not miss at the airport, but the arrival of the captain of the English team, favorite to reissue its title, was the news of the first page.Days later, Alfonso Senior's house arrived from the high long -distance telephone account that left the Bobby Moore accommodation.
With his usual 6 on his back, Bobby Moore jumped to the court in the debut of the English team on June 2 against Romania, at stake that won 1 to 0, with a goal from Geoff Hursst in the 65th minute.Five days later, at the Jalisco Stadium, they faced Brazil.Criticism announced the game as the advanced final.With Jairzinho's goal in the 59th minute, Mario Zagallo's team won over England.That day Pelé and Bobby Moore exchanged their shirts.On June 11, the eleven of Alf Ramsey specified its second phase classification with Victoria on Checoslovakia by 1 to 0.At that point in the championship, no one was talking about the bracelet.
Of course, as the World Cup Mexico 70 was the first one that Colombians saw on television, in the Gordon Banks team, Tommy Wright, Alan Mulray, Francis Lee, Bobby Charlton or Martin Peters, there was no one who did not recognize the elusive Bobby Moore.On June 14, Germany eliminated the English 3 to 2 with goals from Franz Beckenbauer, Uwe Seler and Gerd Muller, and the English team returned home with more grief than glory.Bobby Moore did not talk about the bracelet again, the case was diluted in the judicial stages until it was one more file, and from now on journalism added to its memories of football this embarrassing premundialist chapter.
Bobby Moore never ceased to be treated in the United Kingdom as a real legend.He represented his country in more than one hundred meetings and was captain of the English team for 90 of them, including the six games against Uruguay, Mexico, France, Argentina, Portugal and Germany that allowed England to its world champion title in 1966.He played ten years at the West Ham United, between 1963 and 1974, for three years defended the colors of Fulham, and retired in the United States wearing the Sounders jacket.A cancer took him 51 years in 1993 and, some time later, a statue was erected at Wembley Stadium to preserve his memory.
As for the memories of the bracelet, once the London BBC, in its space this is my life, made a tribute program to Moore, and for things of destiny the Colombian leader Alfonso Senior who was in England was invited.They greeted themselves with affection, but none spoke of the jewel or the Colombian chapter.Over time, only versions remained.It was said that the owner of the jewelry invented the story to prove his business.That everything was a plot to affect the English, and until Moore did not want to talk, but he always knew what happened to the garment.The truth is that 50 years ago, his passage through Bogotá was much more than simple news.
