El Presidente (Amazon Prime Chile/Argentina) S01: B-

From Latin America comes the story of the scandal that shocked the world of soccer, even if only for a few seconds. Ever since the detention of some high level FIFA members, little has been said about the corruption and money laundering that surrounds the international game.

Even if you are not a fan of soccer you can enjoy this series, I mean corruption is an international language. Some would even dare say more than love.

The story is told from the point of view of two characters. Rosario (played by Karla Souza) an FBI undercover agent, that actually didn't exist. And Sergio Jadue (played by Andrés Parra) who was, briefly, the Chilean president of the national soccer association, that gave him a ticket to play among other big league FIFA members.

He was the first to be aprehended and used as a mole by the FBI to bring down some of the members of FIFA for money laundering, corruption and other white collar crimes. Some of them are even threatening to sue Amazon Prime for defamation.

I suppose this is not the whole story, because for some weird reason other corrupted representatives are not even mentioned and focus solely on the South American representatives. Who control a big deal of the decisions in the international association.

But even though is the USA government who orchestrates the whole operation, with the support of Interpol. In the end they show how the country also speaks corruption. After all the 2026 world cup would be shared by North America. And for reasons unknown they don't even mention Russia, even though that's sort of when it became more evident that the system was corrupted.

The story is pure gold for entertainment reasons. But there is something just not that good about how they told us the story. Maybe the fact that it was more of a comedy than a thriller or a drama. Maybe if they had treated the subject more seriously the show could have more impact on the viewers. After all the comedy point of views was shared by Jon Oliver on Last Week Tonight back in 2015, a few months short the scandal hit the news papers.

If they had inclined for a more dramatic tone, which we all know that our trio of actors are fully capable of. Karla Souza has showed us her range in How To Get Away With Murder, Andrés Parra on Pablo Escobar and Paulina Gaitan on Diablo Guardián. And actually they could have made news with their respective roles. But with a lighter tone the series looses some dramatic punch. A part of me thinks this was actually thanks to FIFA that probably paid the producers to be kind to them.

Is a great way to refresh your memory and for the authorities to still keep an eye on them and also remember that some of the cases are still awaiting trial after five years.

The series was created by Armando Bo, who also wrote Birdman and has an Oscar for his work in that movie. And is one of the biggest productions that Amazon Prime has from Latin America. It has an open ending that promises to open up more secrets from FIFA, but as of now the series hasn't been renewed for a second season.

I do recommend you to watch it, like I said before, even if you don't know much about soccer. I just think that as a thriller or drama could have worked better.