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Boca Juniors fans. Victor R. Caivano/AP/Press Association Images

Top Argentine football league renamed in honour of sunk Belgrano warship

The Argentinian government owns the rights to First Division matches and shows games on free-to-air TV.

ARGENTINA’S GOVERNMENT HAS decided to rename the country’s top football division after a naval ship sunk by British torpedoes during the Falklands War.

The season, which begins on Friday, will be the known as the Crucero General Belgrano Primera División or Cruiser General Belgrano First Division in English.

Argentina lost 649 servicemen in the war, 323 of whom were crew members on the Belgrano in May, 1982.

The Argentinian government owns the rights to First Division matches and shows games on free-to-air TV.

The Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano sinks amid orange life rafts holding survivors in the South Atlantic Ocean, after being torpedoed by the British Royal Navy on 1 May, 1982. Pic: AP Photo/ File

Advertising time during the matches is often used to promote the accomplishments of the government, which says the islands it calls “Las Islas Malvinas” belong to Argentina, of course.

The 30th anniversary of the start of the 10-week war is 2 April.

- additional reporting AP

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    Mute Kevin
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    Aug 4th 2011, 2:28 PM

    About time.

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    Mute David Elkin
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    Aug 4th 2011, 3:33 PM

    @Phil: I think the management are trying to give the players a full pre season before giving them match time in these games. If you look at the team, only Fitzgerald and Sexton started the Magners League Final at the start of June. I think they will be re introducing the front line players over the course of the warm up games. Remember, there are 5 games in total. So, I would expect us to be playing our full team by the middle or the end of the series.

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    Mute Phil Mc Donald
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    Aug 4th 2011, 2:45 PM

    So much for the 1st’s gettin alot of gametime preWC, half these guys won’t be on the plane. We’ll be undercooked again

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    Mute Barry R.
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    Aug 4th 2011, 7:32 PM

    Phil, the concept of international rugby team management now is that there isn’t a ‘firsts’.
    There is a squad who are all ‘firsts’.

    Clearly Kidney will use this time to decide who will go and who won’t. If you think he is part of the Munster mafia then fair enough, I just don’t know where you draw your view from.

    Even at club level, we work to introduce the ‘squad’ concept right from underage. It eliminates the prima donna attitude of an ‘A team’

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    Mute Aideen Reilly
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    Aug 4th 2011, 4:06 PM

    will it be televised?

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    Mute Phil Mc Donald
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    Aug 4th 2011, 3:12 PM

    Correction: half these guys Shouldn’t be on the plane, but the Munster Mafia will have their way

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    Mute David Elkin
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    Aug 4th 2011, 4:27 PM

    Actually, just checked, it doesn’t appear to be on BBC 2 NI, which is the channel we get here, they are showing the Dublin v Tyrone game. I read that it was on BBC in The Sunday Times, they mustn’t have changed it for their Irish readers. So, after all this, I have no idea if it is being televised.

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    Mute Aideen Reilly
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    Aug 4th 2011, 6:40 PM

    I can get BBC London as well as BBC NI, thank God although I just checke my virgin listings and the GAA isnt til 7 and BBC2 NI is showing both

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    Mute David Elkin
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    Aug 4th 2011, 4:18 PM

    It’s on BBC2 for definite, don’t know about RTE’s coverage. There are issues surrounding RTE’s coverage of the whole warm up series.

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