Fernando Romero Nuñez 
Buenos Aires City police arrested 30 River Plate fans on Sunday, after rival factions of the team’s football firms brawled near the Monumental stadium, wounding three.
The men were members of the River Plate barrabrava, one of the violent organized groups in Argentine football.
In the afternoon before River’s debut against Argentinos Juniors, members of the main barrabrava and a dissident group clashed in Cantilo Avenue, near Labruna Bridge, a street leading to the stadium.
The fighting lasted several minutes, until police intervened. According to their report, police detained thirty people and seized sticks, stones, knives and other bladed weapons. Three wounded members of the barrabravas were transported to Pirovano hospital.
The dissident faction members had rented a bus painted in the colors of one of the lines that goes to the stadium in order to skip police controls. They were part of a demonstration on Saturday to demand they be removed from a Buenos Aires City alert list, which has prevented them from entering the stadiums since last year.
Buenos Aires City Mayor Jorge Macri praised the police’s work on X and called for the presentation of a “reiteration law” to apply harsher sentences to second offenders.
“With the Reiteration Law, many of [the detained River barrabravas] could be behind bars, waiting for trial (as they have at least three previous offenses) and wouldn’t be out on the streets generating violence,” Macri wrote.
Alejandro Medina, the leader of the dissident faction, had his house raided in the build-up to the 2018 Copa Libertadores final, where police seized several passes with which the gang intended to access the game played at the Monumental. The final was suspended when River fans attacked the bus taking Boca Juniors players into the stadium. He was also imprisoned in 2019 after another episode of barrabrava violence.
