The peace and tranquility of the Parque Sarmiento de Cordoba was interrupted, on the morning of 30 July 2004, by a thunderous sound coming from the pergola of the plaza. A body lay on a cement bench. On one side was a pack of Parliament cigarettes; on the other, a 9-millimeter pistol. One of the passers-by who heard the shot approached the scene and notified the Police immediately. Fabian Madorran, by then a former referee, had decided to end his life. 16 years after his death, his inner circle spoke for the first time of an event riddled with myths and rumors that affected Argentine soccer.
In the South area of Buenos Aires, Madorran became devoted to the passion that most children and adolescents pursue: football. He was 15 years old when he started refereeing on the field in front of his house in Lanas. His neatness, presence and commitment to justice showed potential at the domestic and international level. Madorran refereed 161 matches in the First Division, from 1997 to 2003. He was a very strict referee, who sent off 153 players in 161 games, which means he issued a red card in almost every match. He became a FIFA referee in 1998 and debuted in a U-20 CONMEBOL tournament, where he sent off 4 Brazilian players, which provoked a big scandal in the South-American confederation. The memories will also remember an image from the year 2001, when he was appointed to referee the match Boca - Almagro and a camera captured him in the foreground singing the historic song «I follow you everywhere, I love you more and more», which is the Boca song, but people said that it was dedicated to his girlfriend, who was in the audience that night. Several former colleagues recall that after performing the fitness test, they met in a group to walk the 450 meters that separated the training ground from the Red and Black bar located on Avenida Crisologo Larralde and shared a meal. There, Madorran often got up from the table quickly and paid for the drinks of the 10, 15 or 20 people who were with him. The same at a year-end referee party at the Hotel Bauen that lasted until the wee hours of the morning and ended with breakfast at his invitation – impossible to refuse – in a nearby bar. His detachment from money made him noticed, moreover, when he had to referee an international cup match abroad. CONMEBOL paid the referees a fee of $1,000 and it was commonplace that Fabian stopped for several minutes in the Free Shop to buy perfumes and other items that, for the most part, would be given to his loved ones. «He was a generous guy, with a big heart», described by those who knew him the most. At the matches in which he was appointed he always came with a procession made up of friends and friends of his friends. He presented himself firmly to the police authorities and made everyone pass: «The boys are with me». Even groups of 15 men have entered the Argentine stadiums thanks to Madorran, who served as a public relations officer. And, after the game, everyone was invited to eat pizza. He paid everything, of course. «Fabian’s pizza and the third period were the best thing that refereeing had», they recall.
Within the refereeing community he made several friends and especially one who later showed some of his characteristics and style: Pablo Lunati. Madorran had inherited the line of Javier Castrilli, rigorous, blunt referee, with the red card in hand at all times. And he added to that some personal nuances. Histrionic and comfortable in front of the cameras, he hinted at a kind of acting facet. Madorran (born in ‘65) and Lunati (67) forged a close relationship, training together. During the week they exercised, on Saturdays Lunati refereed his matches (on the ascent up there) and on Sundays was Madorran’s turn (in Primera). The trust became such that there were unpublished confessions between each other. «No one ever asked me about him and I assure you that I know more about his life than anybody else knows», Lunati says to Infobae. “At the time it bothered me that they said he was homosexual because at that time he was singled out, criticized and, based on that, they discriminated against him. I cried a lot for his helplessness of being able to show it or not”, he said about Madorran on the Virtual Soccer television program in ‘99, when he was chosen by colleagues and referees as the most outstanding in his field. At that time he also resigned from AAA (Argentine Referees Association) and joined SADRA (Union of Sports Referees of the Argentine Republic). Lunati has no qualms about touching this «taboo within football» that unfortunately meant much more two decades ago. “We had different lives because I had a wife and children and he had a male partner. Each one lived his life and respected the other. With me, he never had problems talking about his homosexuality and many times we discussed why he didn’t make it public”, says the person who named him as godfather of one of his children.
Some excesses took their toll on his work. His performance in a promotion match in Cordoba, in which he annulled two goals, marked a turning point in his career. The professional life that he had strictly complied with at the beginning was no longer such. He frequented discos and that brought him problems in his relationship with his partner. He acquired a certain amount of carelessness, which was later revealed on the weekends when he had to referee. “One day we had a very deep talk, but Fabian was half stubborn, he said yes and it went in one ear and out the other. He was afraid of drugs, but he went out a lot at night, drank too much alcohol and smoked too much. He was making a lot of mistakes in games and when you make so many mistakes, so many times in a row, there is something you are not doing well”, Lunati reflects. He had neglected training with his personal trainer and only his genetics and privileged physique allowed him to continue taking the tests required by the AFA. «Do you know how many times I woke up with missed calls from Fabian at 3 or 4 in the morning? Capable of drinking alcohol, watching a movie, becoming melancholic and making him talk. But I had to train the next day and I couldn’t always attend to him. I was close to getting to Primera and had to sleep. As much as he was my friend, I had to separate things. Many times I said to Fabian to stop smoking, stop drinking, stop going out at night. I am not one of those friends who say everything yes, many times he liquidated it and stopped talking to me for weeks”, confesses Lunati. Most of his colleagues had appreciated his selfless generosity, but not everyone liked that style. He was furious when his heterosexuality was put on trial and he heard that he was linked to the «Pink Command», but people claim that there was never discrimination in refereeing against him. In fact, during a pre-season meeting of the referees in Mar del Plata they made fun of his constant leading role and naturalness and gave him a statuette for being the star of the group, something he took sarcastically. “I spoke many times about his homosexuality and last time I said ‘crazy, you have to say it, to free your soul, to be happy. If it makes you happy because it’s your nature, you have to say it and get it out of you’. He replied that it was not the time, but that he was going to do it”, Lunati adds. He had become a chain smoker and did not hide some eccentricities, such as immediately replacing the loss of a gold Dupont lighter valued at $800 because it ensured that cigarettes had a different taste when lit with that particular one. The biggest flaw in Madorran, in which all the interviewees for this article agreed, was his vice for the game. He went often to the floating Casino of Puerto Madero, where he met other personalities related to sports. From the Poker table to the Black Jack, from having a glass of whiskey or Tia Maria (served in coffee cups) to drinking two or three, from smoking a cigarette to three whole packages. What started as a hobby turned into an unbridled bad habit and damaged his healthy routine.
Source: Explica
