Argentina's Delayed Football Season To Start On August 21

Argentina's delayed football season will finally get underway on August 21, after being put on hold because several top first division clubs are in serious debt.

The Argentine Apertura Championship had originally been schedule to begin on Friday, but was delayed because of financial trouble. Several of the country's top clubs are in debt, and are owing to AFA and their own players.

AFA president Julio Grondona claimed that seven first division clubs - including Argentine giants Boca Juniors and River Plate - will need to pay their players before the season can begin.

In order to solve the problem, the Argentine government proposed paying the clubs $154 million for the rights to televise the entire season, but this would mean that first they would have to break the pending contract with Grupo Clarin and Torneos y Competencias (TyC Sports), which has existed since 1991.

TyC had announced that AFA would risk a multimillion-dollar lawsuit if they broke the existing contract. On Tuesday it was controversially broken, but AFA didn't give any ground as to who might broadcast the rights.

But despite the financial problems associated with the league, almost all of the clubs have continued to reinforce their squads in an attempt to be competitive when the championship finally begins.

A number of Argentine clubs will also participate in the Copa Sudamericana this season, South America's second-tier club competition after the Copa Libertadores.

One of them, Argentina's most popular club, Boca, have struggled to make ends meet for several months now, but although they sold two key players in Rodrigo Palacio and Fabian Vargas this season, they replaced them with players of the quality of Gary Medel and Federico Insua.

Their main rivals, teams like River, San Lorenzo, Racing Club and Independiente continue to buy players, even if they know that in the future they may not be able to afford them.

One of the main reasons why Argentine clubs are struggling is the recession in Europe. Argentine clubs are selling less players, and this really hurts them because they have become dependent of this income.