América de Cali: Inside Colombia’s most notorious football fandom

One hot Colombian night in June 2023, while hinchas (fans) of the Cali futbol team América were at a concert of Los Pibes Chorros (an Argentine gangsta cumbia band), seven young men wearing motorcycle helmets and waving guns broke into the office where América’s barras brava (the team’s fan clubs) hold meetings and store their stuff. After searching the place, the thieves made off with a few dozen trapos (banners and flags) of the barras brava.

Although to some, these trapos might seem of little importance, their theft set off a wave of violence throughout the city for days to come. On the night of the robbery, a motorcade of over 50 motorcycles roamed the city searching for the stolen momentos, and there were shootouts on inner-city highways between hinchas of América and those of their most bitter rival, Deportivo Cali (one of the thieves in the video could be seen wearing a jacket with their logo). The leader of Barón Rojo and another member were subsequently arrested by police for possession of guns. Other violent attacks followed the next few days, and police sirens and helicopters could be heard throughout the city deep into the night. A day after the robbery, Cali’s mayor promised to recover the trapos and offered US $5,000 to anyone who had information, a clear sign that more violence and chaos were expected.

For many people in Colombia, futbol is the most intense part of their life; as fervent as any religion. And, as in many extreme religions, the devil plays a major role in Colombian futbol.

Cali is home to two first division futbol teams – Deportivo Cali and América de Cali. Deportivo Cali is owned by the sugar barons and is the team of preference of the good citizens of the city, its stadium located outside of the city surrounded by fields of sugar cane that stretch off into the horizon. América, on the other hand, is mostly the team of the city’s working class, Afro-Colombian population, and marginalised and criminal classes. While the Deportivo Cali uniform is a cheery green and white, América’s uniform is blood red with a logo of a human-like figure that sports a pointy beard, a long pointy tail and a pitchfork in his hand. Not for nothing, the team is known as the ‘red devils’.

As happens to those who make a Faustian pact with the devil, tragedy awaits. América won the championship for the first time with the devil logo in 1992, but that same year several of the players were gunned down either by jealous lovers or mortally injured in drug-related drive-by shootings. In 2011, the team was put on then-President Clinton’s list of narco-related businesses, the owners of the team accused of being associates of the Cali Cartel and the soccer franchise of being a front to launder drug money. The team lost its financial backers and was demoted to the minor league – a great humiliation to the fans – and only returned to Division One in 2017.

América’s nefarious devil logo has often been blamed for the team’s misfortunes. On several occasions, the doomed motif has been removed from their uniform, and once it was even exorcised by a priest in a ceremony in the middle of the field, but the fanatical support of the followers always brings it back, despite the fact that by far most Colombians are Catholic. The symbol is ubiquitous throughout the city (though mostly in the most economically deprived barrios), on shirts, sweatpants and hats, on the outside and insides of cars, taxis and buses, painted on murals and sidewalks of the city, and tattooed on the arms, bellies and backs of a sizable sector of the city’s population. More than any religious icon and perhaps even more than the Colombian flag, the devil is the image that is most venerated in Cali.

“América’s neferious devil logo has often been blamed for the team’s misfortunes... once it was even exorcised by a priest in a ceremony in the middle of the field” – Kurt Hollander

The barras bravas of América – the tightly organised groups of futbol fanatics from different neighborhoods around the city – are called the Red Fury, The Passion of the People, or The Fuse (in reference to the fireworks they blow off before and after games). Of the 20 organised barra bravas that root for América, the most fanatical is Barón Rojo. While undoubtedly considered one of the most violent barras brava in all of South America, Barón Rojo is divided between those who come for the partying and the violence and those committed to social and community activities based around the team. In 2002, public university students, who composed a barra brava of at least 2,000, came up with the motto: “You need a lot of balls and a lot of guts to be a peaceful hincha”. Nonetheless, the students were eventually forced out and migrated to another section of the stadium.

To fund their activities and travels, hinchas from Barón Rojo print the team’s logo on shirts, sweatpants and scarves and set up shop on the sidewalk outside the stadium to sell their merchandise before the games, hanging their flags and banners behind them to identify their allegiance. Several barra bravas have their own fanzines that provide information, images and tales of their team. The first zine was called Brutal Volume, and was soon followed by Fanatic Red, edited and produced by The Devil Collective, a group of designers and cultural producers from Barón Rojo. The Devil Collective held writing workshops to get people to write about their experiences following their team around Colombia and abroad.

The firm is infamous for the violence it creates before, during and after matches, both inside and outside the stadium. Barón Rojo hinchas have been responsible for knocking over the fences that were built to contain them in several stadiums, and for breaking the rails on the second floor of the Pascual Guerrero stadium where América plays its homes games, sending dozens of hinchas crashing onto the cement stands down below, flooding onto the field of the stadium looking for fights; battling police on the streets of Cali (the biggest clash led to the arrest of a hundred fanatics); staging attacks on rival clubs and on visiting hinchas; kidnapping buses of a rival team’s barra brava; opening gunfire on the steps of the main library in Cali.

The Pascual Guerrero stadium, home to América de Cali, is divided into four sections. The West and East sections are located on both sides of the midfield, with the best view and assigned seats, but hinchas are prohibited from entering those sections and most couldn’t afford tickets in those sections, anyway. To get into el Sur, the southern part of the stadium controlled by Barón Rojo, fans must wait in a long line flanked by riot police and mounted police with long wooden truncheons. Lines can be so long they stretch halfway around the arena, composed exclusively of young men in their teens or twenties, most with partially shaved heads, devil and Barón Rojo tattoos, and wearing América shirts or, quite commonly, no shirts at all, all the better to show off their tattoos (women have a separate, quicker access).

More than just a force to inspire the soccer players on the field, the Barón Rojo barra brava has the power to stop a game whenever they choose to by simply streaming down onto the field and refusing to move, something they have done on repeated occasions. Games often end with attacks against the other team’s hinchas, either inside the stadium or on the surrounding streets, the goal being not just to smash skulls and cripple rivals but also to snatch the trapos of the other team’s barra brava as trophies. 

When one barra brava gets ahold of their rival’s trapos, they make a point of parading it around on social media. In one video, hinchas from America who stole a Deportivo Cali flag stand in front of it, hung upside down, while they dance around with their faces covered but showing off their barra brava and gangster tattoos. One of América’s hinchas held a bull’s head in front of his face to further taunt their rivals.

Over the past decades, there have been several cases of stolen trapos. In 2022, trapos from a barra brava of Deportivo Cali were stolen and the barra brava of América was blamed. Due to the fact that it was the biggest heist of trapos in the history of Cali futbol, and because it didn’t occur during a scuffle on the field or during a street battle after a game, as is tradition, the recent robbery of América’s trapos is especially humiliating and a provocation that the hinchas of Barón Rojo can’t let slide. This ensures that the violence inside and outside of the stadium and across the city, between different groups of fanatics or between fanatics and police – an enduring game even more exciting than the futbol being played on the field – will continue in Cali as long as team América exists.

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