# El Presidente (2020)

> A small-town soccer club director rises to lead Chile's football association and becomes both a power-drunk protege and an FBI informant in a global corruption scheme.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/85442

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 16
- Episode runtime: 58 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, crime
- Created by: Pablo Larraín
- Network: Prime Video
- Cast: Andrés Parra, Karla Souza, Paulina Gaitán, Luis Margani, Alberto Ajaka, Anita Reeves, Luis Gnecco, Federico Liss
- TMDB rating: 7.2/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10091306/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: mild
- Tone: tense, cynical, gritty, morally corrosive

## What critics say

Critics broadly view the series as a sharp, grounded dramatization of soccer corruption, with a standout lead performance and a dark satirical edge.

## Synopsis

El Presidente (2020-2022) is a Chilean crime drama series created by Pablo Larraín for Prime Video. Andrés Parra plays Sergio Jadue, a lowly director of a small-town soccer club who unexpectedly finds himself at the head of the Chilean football association. Drunk with power, he becomes the protege of soccer godfather Julio Grondona, played by Luis Margani, while also becoming the FBI's key to unravelling the largest corruption scheme in world soccer. Karla Souza and Paulina Gaitán appear among the principal cast, shaping the personal and professional circles around him. The engine of the show is a climber's appetite pushing against the danger of getting caught, as every dealing, bribe and backroom meeting tightens the trap. Across two seasons of eight episodes each, the story unfolds as one continuing dramatization of real events, with each episode layering another negotiation over the last. The atmosphere is tense and morally corrosive, with a wry, cynical edge that keeps the viewer uneasy about who is using whom. Set in modern Latin America and the international soccer world, it is a sharp, grounded prestige drama for fans of Narcos and Icarus who enjoy stories of ambition, institutional rot and real-world scandal.

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