Venezuelan baseball players at a training session. Photo: X/@ligasenior_latinoamericana.
Through a press release, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Sports Ministry of Venezuela announced that the Venezuelan government has initiated an investigation to determine whether there is a “human trafficking scheme” behind the case of baseball players who requested asylum in a police station in Barcelona, Spain.
The statement, issued on Wednesday, April 2, states that according to the information disseminated by the Spanish media, these 19 young baseball players, between 18 and 22 years of age, had been abandoned in Spain by Julio Guevara, who is the president of the Latin American Senior League of under-23 baseball and owner of the representation agency Guevara Team, the team to which these players belong and who were on an exhibition tour in Europe.
In response, Guevara published a video on Tik Tok denying the accusations against him but acknowledged that he returned alone to Venezuela. He claimed that those players were fighting “for their permits” to join professional baseball clubs; however, he did not provide further details on the matter, and did not make it clear whether he was referring to visas or asylum requests.
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The Venezuelan government expressed concern about the possibility that these cases are linked to a human trafficking network and decried that some governments “are using international legal aspects for political purposes to discredit Venezuela and manipulate young athletes.”
The government also reaffirmed its commitment to the safety and protection of Venezuelan athletes and warned about the existence of organizations that profit by deceiving young talents and their families. “We warn everyone about these trafficking networks that operate under false promises, and we demand that the rights of our athletes be respected,” reads the official statement.
For the moment, the situation remains unclarified. The Venezuelan government stated that it will continue the investigation and will take necessary measures to protect Venezuelan citizens. The government also called upon Spain to guarantee transparency in the process and prevent politicization of the case. “We condemn any attempt to instrumentalize this sensitive issue in the neocolonial and fascist narratives against our homeland,” the statement concluded.
(Telesur)
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SL
