2022 Copa Chenel attracts controversy
Prior to a lottery draw of the initial carteles for this year’s Copa Chenel competition (the results of which can be seen above), the joint Fundación del Toro de Lidia/Communidad de Madrid project had already run into a couple of controversies.
First of all, the Catalan matador Serafín Marín published an open letter written by his manager, Rafael Campillo, criticising the FTL for not including Marín amongst the participants. “I want to express my unhappiness with the way I’ve been treated,” Campillo wrote, “for I thought that la Fundación was created for la difusion and the promotion of tauromaquia, especially in places where it was particularly under threat. We should recognise that, if there is any part of the territorio nacional that has trampled on and snatched away our rights, it’s Catalonia […] I must state my terrible disappointment that, for the second year running, la Fundación has omitted from its series of opportunities, Catalonia’s only active matador de toros, Serafín Marín […]
“To be clear, absolutely all the matadors who’ve been announced for the competition are worthy participants, for these aren’t times in which the empresas are generous in providing such chances. But the FTL’s lack of sensitivity towards Serafín Marín is obvious, even though it knows he struggles with a handicap no other matador faces - the inability to ask to be put on with bulls in his home region, because this right is denied him.”
Serafín Marín
Serafín probably had more cause to feel aggrieved last year when the competition was built upon a combination of matadors, with veterans such as Fernando Robleño and Sánchez Vara as well as newcomers to the senior status. This year’s competition is very much based on the latter category. Marín (alternativa 2002) is in his twentieth year as a matador de toros, while the longest-serving matador in this year’s crop of Copa Chenel toreros is Francisco José Palazón (alternativa 2004), with Paco Ramos (alternativa 2005) and Alejandro Morilla (alternativa 2006) the next up, these three being very much outliers compared to the rest of the participants whose alternativa years range from 2012-2021. Whilst the point about Marín being unable to appear in his home region is undeniable, it can also be argued that none of the toreros in the competition have had the opportunities previously afforded to Serafín Marín.
The second controversy has more merit. Just one participant from the previous edition of the competition, Ángel Téllez, has been included again on the grounds that “he was the best second-placed torero” in 2021. Fernando Robleño and Jesús Enrique Colombo, both of whom went through to the final with eventual winner Fernando Adrián, might disagree with that statement, as might Paulita, who put up a strong performance in the closing stages of the certamén. All of these toreros, however, have been better placed in the escalafón than Téllez.
Ángel Téllez
I think the organisers have been right to focus la Copa Chenel on relatively recent matadors who’ve had little opportunity to show their talents in the bullring. Perhaps with an eye to greater clarity, this year’s competition will end not with a conventional corrida of three toreros but with a mano a mano between the top two participants. The approach of featuring two ganaderías per corrida (predominantly from minority encastes), and putting the festejos on in places in Madrid province that would perhaps not otherwise hold a corrida, has been maintained, and, once again, all the corridas will be televised and streamed live by Telemadrid.
The competition got off to a start last weekend with the opening corrida at Alalpardo, David Galván lucky not to be badly injured in an early tossing by an El Retamar bull, but going on to cut its two ears and become the first matador to win a place in Copa Chenel’s semi-finals.