A match in the final price of the CONCACAF Cup witnessed a historic event, with the participation of a player over 60 years old, but he is a player with a strange biography and a career full of events far from the world of sports.
Ronnie Brunswick, vice-president of Suriname and a former rebel, played a key role in the match that brought together, on Tuesday, the Brunswick club, Inter Muengotapu, against CD Olympia of Honduras in the first leg of the CONCACAF Cup final, a competition similar to the European League and brings together teams from the North American region. Central and Caribbean.
Brunswick, who was wearing the captain's armband and wearing the number 61 (referring to his date of birth 1961), took part in 54 minutes of the match that ended in a thumping 6-0 defeat for his team.
And he found the "old player" in the attack, along with his son Damien Brunswick, who took the number 10, to be at the age of 60 years and 198 days, the oldest player to participate in an international match at the club level.
Brunswick, a former sergeant in the Army, led a group of rebels in the 1980s against the rule of dictator Daisy Bouterse.
The New York Times previously described his journey as "an elite paratrooper, soccer player, bank robber, guerrilla leader, gold baron, and father of at least 50 children".
Brunswick is a wealthy businessman. He was convicted in absentia for drug trafficking and was convicted of 8 years in prison in 1999 by the Dutch justice (the former colonial state of Suriname). He was also sentenced to 10 years by the French justice, but Suriname does not extradite its nationals in such cases.
In 2005 he was elected as a Member of Parliament, and in 2020 he was elected as the Vice President of Suriname Chandrikapersad Santoki.
In the face of his legal troubles and the sentences imposed on him, Brunswick will not play the return match against Club de Olympe in Honduras.