Athlete Says Request For Raise Brought Death Threat From Military - - Honduran Soccer Player Wanted To Double Monthly $250 Salary
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - The military officers who own one of Honduras' top soccer teams have threatened to kill the goalkeeper unless he stops demanding a raise.
Juan Fernando Palacios, goalkeeper for the first-division Real Maya team, denounced the death threats yesterday to the National Soccer Federation and reporters in the Honduran capital.
Palacios said he began receiving threats after he had asked the team - owned, like many things in Honduras, by the army - to double his monthly salary of $250.
"Soccer players are supposed to act like soldiers, and the military considers it a crime to tell the truth," said Palacios.
"If something happens to me or my family in the future, the armed forces are to blame," he said, without naming the individuals allegedly threatening him.
Human rights groups say team president Col. Alexander Hernandez was involved in the disappearance and presumed murders of 184 suspected leftists in the 1980s, when the nation was the center of U.S. efforts to wipe out support for Honduran and other Central American guerrilla movements.
The army became a powerful economic force in Honduras, having had access to at least $500 million in U.S. military aid to combat subversion over the past decade.
Companies owned by the army make it the ninth-largest business in Honduras.