It is a fact that Charles Albert knew how to become a reference voice in all media in which he entered. His television interventions were as vehement as his opinion columns. She never kept anything to herself nor did she want to look good with anyone. Hugo Sanchez, Jorge Vergara, Ricardo La Volpe, Javier AguirreFidel Kuri, Decius of Maria. The list of characters that Albert set his sights on could deliver an encyclopedia.
That was always his way during his 41 years as a sports analyst (he retired last year). Since he arrived as a ‘rookie’ commentator on Channel 13 (then owned by the Mexican State), to comment on the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, Albert has cultivated a direct, frank, disputed and stubborn style on many occasions, which despite —or thanks to— the stridency earned him the respect of viewers and also the rejection of many others.
When he lived one of his fullest moments on television, after the 1994 World Cup, that universe ended for him. The reason? A proposal to visit Subcomandante Marcos la Selva Lacandona. “Samuel Ruíz (bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas) invited me to meet Subcomandante Marcos. I wrote and defended him. On the channel they told me: you are not allowed to touch the subject on the channel. No, I wrote (elsewhere) The bishop told me: “I have a place on the plane. I told him of course,” he told La Saga.
In August 1993, Imevisión had been acquired by Ricardo Salinas Pliego, as part of the privatization policies undertaken during the six-year term of Carlos Salinas de Gortari. And it was the businessman who denied Albert the chance to go. Albert asked for his vacation to make Ruíz’s invitation valid. “I took them and left. I did not obey the instructions of the owner, who is the one who is right now, that I do not even want to name him. He was the one who kicked me out of there. He knew (Salinas Pliego) and forget it, “he confessed.
Albert, in the end, could not meet Marcos, but he did know the whole place where the Zapatista Army was sheltered and the way they lived. “He wasn’t there, he was involved in other things. I didn’t meet him, but I met everyone. I met Comandanta Ramona. It was an impressive experience that I wouldn’t change for anything. I went with several journalists and freely explored everything.”
After that episode, Albert was fired from the nascent TV Azteca and left the television media for several years. In 2000 he held public office: Sports Director of the Federal District. In 2001 he left office and was disqualified for 25 years after the Comptroller of the Capital Government argued irregularities in an adjudication and having exceeded its powers.
Forged in Necaxa and selected nationally during the 60s, Alberto saw his career cut short prematurely in 1971, at the age of 28. His team, the Rayos, had made the decision to sell him to Atlante, where they would pay him half his salary. He did not accept: he was opposed at all times and went even further. He became the first soccer player to sue a team in Mexico with the Federal Labor Law under the arm. His lawyers advised him to form a syndicate and he set to work, but he was met with almost total indifference in the environment and, finally, he failed in his assignment.
“I studied a career (Administration), but colleagues who did not even have to eat, who did not pay them anything, colleagues who had to raise money to have a child, did not have to pay for a hospital,” he said in a conversation with Roberto Gómez Junco
After his time as a civil servant, Albert resumed his activity on television. He first on CNI Channel 40 and in 2007 he arrived at ESPN. In his rebirth as a commentator, Albert Llorente once again gave the note for a controversial dismissal in the framework of the 2012 presidential campaigns. The former player published on social networks that people should see the first debate of the presidential candidates and not the semifinals of Mexican soccer that, at the same time, were going to play Morelia and Tigres. After that he had participations in Fox Sports, Radio Centro and Chain reaction.
“They’re not going to make me change. Part of what I have done is because I do it with pleasure. I do it with pleasure because I do it with conviction. If you change my convictions, it won’t work,” Albert told Apuntes de Rabona in 2019.
It’s true. There were never a lack of embarrassing moments, of those that abound on sports TV. Albert participated many times in excessive controversy and easy insults. This trend has become more acute in recent times, when he was not ashamed to use high-sounding words to demean his own teammates or other colleagues, as when he attacked the Argentine narrator Sebastián Vignolo, who had classified Tigres as a “small” team. .
After officially retiring from the media last year, Albert has remained active on social media and occasionally participates in television and internet interviews.
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Carlos Albert and his dismissal from TV Azteca for agreeing to visit Subcomandante Marcos