Football team signs Bolivia president Evo Morales

A FIRST division Bolivian football club has signed the country’s president as a midfielder for next season.

President Morales, pictured playing football in September 2013. Picture: AP

Evo Morales, who is an avid football fan, has joined Sport Boys Warnes, who are based in the country’s south-eastern province of Santa Cruz.

The club confirmed that Morales, 54, would play for around 20 minutes per match, but due to his busy schedule would not be available for each game.

Morales - who has played in a number of well-publicised matches in the past - will receive about $214 (around £127).

Sport Boys’ president Mario Cronenbold said that the president would wear the No 10 shirt, adding: “We’ll send him a list of matches and he’ll chose which ones to play in.

“He loves football and plays well.”

Morales, the country’s first indigenous president, took part in a match in 2007 played at 19,700ft above sea level as part of a wider protest to stop Bolivia playing international matches at high altitude.

A year earlier, he broke his nose following a clash with an opposing goalkeeper.

Edwin Tupa, a local politician with Morales’ Movement towards Socialism (MAS) party, said that the deal was a dream come true for the president.