The state of health of Gabriel Camargo, president of Deportes Tolima, worsens

The top leader of Deportes Tolima, Gabriel Camargo Salamanca (79 years old, Tunja), worsened in his health condition after the club reported that the cancer tumor, which he has been fighting for a month, would have worsened in recent days.

Whoever was a senator of the Republic and a successful businessman in the poultry industry has a diagnosis of carcinoma of the thyroid gland and, according to the club, traveled to the United States to treat this tumor at the reputed Mayo Clinic that “suffered a mutation to a more aggressive one that has required additional care and therefore has been has generated a more complex forecast”.

“We keep our faith intact and hope to get out of this trial. We thank our colleagues and managers of professional football, the living forces of the Tolima department, as well as football fans, for their solidarity and support” reads the communication, published prior to the meeting that the team won as a visitor against Alianza Petrolera in Barrancabermeja, Santander.

This is the statement released through the Tolimense team's Twitter account:

Who is Gabriel Camargo Salamanca, top leader of Deportes Tolima

In the Congress of the Republic or in any football stadium in the country, the name Gabriel Camargo Salamanca is well known. Leonor Serrano's husband and Gabriel's father, Catherine and Cesar Alejandro, became famous in these two areas, in the mid-eighties. The social and economic positioning of the Camargo Serrano couple began in 1968 with the founding of the Colombian Incubation Company (Incubacol).

Chicken farming proved to be such a good business that years later the Camargos set up four large hatcheries: two in Girardot, one in Chinauta and the other in Barranquilla. Success and business came and their horizons expanded. During the seventies and eighties, Camargo was involved in the construction of popular housing estates, the sale of groceries, groceries and livestock.

And it was in those years that he had his first visit to Deportes Tolima, between 1981 and 1985, with the Kokoriko brand, sponsor at that time of the pijao team, Gabriel Camargo first owned the Tolimense institution. In those years the team won its first runner-up in the Colombian tournament and in 1982, Tolima participated for the first time in the Copa Libertadores de América.

In the late eighties, Camargo sold his shares in Deportes Tolima and moved away from the world of football for a while. 26 years after the creation of the family business, that is, in 1994, in Colombia, legislative elections were held for the period 1994 - 1998. One of the surprises of those elections was the 36,000 votes that the one born in Tunja won in 1943.

In a publication of the Semana Magazine of April 24, 1994, entitled “La Pollitiqueria”, he highlights that Camargo's arrival in the Congress of the Republic was marked by the large amounts of money invested in the campaign and the fact that he would have used the resource of giving chickens to convince his voters. “According to Camargo himself, he manages 50 percent of the country's chicken trade,” says the publication of the time.

Julio César Turbay Quintero was listed before the 1994 elections, as the largest elector in Cundinamarca, the department where Camargo, the son of former president Julio Cesar Turbay finally won, assured after the election that “politics is no longer done in Cundinamarca but 'Pollitica', or, better yet, 'politiciary'.

The Boyacense was elected for two consecutive terms as senator from Colombia (1994-2002), during his first term, he was again the largest shareholder of Deportes Tolima, which in 1998 he sold again. For his political career, in Ibagué he is remembered for being the person who got the resources for the construction of the city's stadium, Manuel Murillo Toro.

During his life in football and politics, the accusations against Camargo have come from all sides. His political opponents have pointed him out as abusive, advantageous and corrupt. Some of his players have called him a bad boss and exploiter, and women call him misogynistic and macho.

In context | Deportes Tolima confirms thyroid cancer of its president Gabriel Camargo - Infobae

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