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Sunderland co-owners Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Juan Sartori were spotted watching Superclásico in Argentina
Sunderland’s ownership duo Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Juan Sartori were spotted in Buenos Aires over the weekend as they took in one of world football’s fiercest fixtures – the Superclásico between Boca Juniors and River Plate.
The moment first emerged on Sartori’s own Facebook story, where he posted footage from inside La Bombonera. The clip – showing Louis-Dreyfus in Sunderland colours filming the scenes around him – was quickly picked up by Sunderland supporter Graeme Down on social media, and soon spread among fans back home.
The pair were part of the sell-out crowd as Boca earned a deserved 2–0 win over their rivals, with Exequiel Zeballos and Miguel Merentiel on the scoresheet. The victory extended River’s alarming slump – six defeats in their last seven league matches – and lifted Boca to the top of Group A with 26 points, securing an automatic place in next year’s Copa Libertadores group stage.
Fans online joked that Louis-Dreyfus and Sartori might return to Wearside with a few ideas ahead of Sunderland’s own upcoming derby, given the explosion of colour, noise and theatre that defines the Boca–River rivalry, while other supporters speculated that the trip was “hopefully business related.” Louis-Dreyfus was also spotted wearing Sunderland gear inside one of football’s most intimidating stadiums.
The story continues Sunderland’s ties to South America through their co-owner Sartori, who recently revealed that it is his “dream” to one day bring a Uruguayan player to the Stadium of Light. Reflecting on Sunderland’s promotion during an interview, Sartori said: “It was a very nice moment, very exciting. It was many years of effort.
“We bought the club almost seven years ago, destroyed in the third division, and it was something that took us from that moment very low until this weekend, where at Wembley, in front of 80,000 people, with the whole world waiting to see if Sunderland would return to the Premier League. We won that game full of stories. Many people talk about money, they say it’s the most expensive game in history, because you have like $200 million in prize money to go up to the Premier League in one game, which is something unique, but for us it’s the culmination of a project of many years, with many individual stories.”
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Sartori also spoke about Sunderland’s identity and the club’s youth-driven rebuild, adding: “Those of you who followed and some of you will have seen the Netflix documentary, you know that the whole world was waiting to see when Sunderland would get back to the Premier League, and what we put together is a project where we bet on something very different, because if you see, it’s the youngest club in all levels of English football. If you look at the players one by one it’s full of stories where we bet on youth, hunger, the desire to do something new and make history again.”
When asked directly whether he hoped to bring a Uruguayan footballer to Wearside, Sartori admitted that it has long been a personal ambition – even if sentiment cannot override the club’s strategy. “That’s always a dream, but you also have to separate heartfelt decisions from patriotic ones, so one would like to make the right decision at the right time,” he said. “I’m sure that one day we’ll manage to bring a Uruguayan to Sunderland, and that it will be under the best conditions, but that’s what we’ll see now. The goal isn’t to bring a Uruguayan; it’s a dream that I hope can come true one day.”
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