General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

El presidente

El presidente is a Chilean-Argentine comedy-drama television series created by Armando Bo for Amazon Prime Video, dramatizing the 2015 FIFA corruption scandal known as "FIFA Gate" through the story of Sergio Jadue, the minor Chilean football official who became a key figure in the case. Its first season of eight one-hour episodes premiered on June 5, 2020 in 200 countries and territories, and a second season followed in 2022.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Premise	Sergio Jadue, head of a small Chilean football club, unexpectedly rises to lead Chilean football and becomes the FBI's key to dismantling the FIFA Gate corruption scheme³
Seasons	Season 1: 8 episodes, premiered June 5, 2020; Season 2: 8 episodes, 2022; 16 episodes total¹^•²
Creator	Armando Bo, Oscar-winning co-writer of Birdman, also showrunner, writer, and director, with directors Natalia Beristáin and Gabriel Díaz¹^•⁴
Lead cast	Andrés Parra as Sergio Jadue, Karla Souza as Rosario, Paulina Gaitán as Nené, Luis Margani as Julio Grondona²^•³
Production	Coproduced by Gaumont, Fábula (the Larraín brothers' company), and Kapow; filmed in Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, and the United States⁵^•⁴
Recognition	International Emmy nomination for Drama Series (2021); Rockie Award for Scripted Comedy Series, Non-English Language (2023); 100% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 11 reviews⁶^•⁷

Spoilers

Premise and real events

The series is inspired by the people and events of the corruption scandal known as "FIFA Gate" in 2015. It follows Sergio Jadue (played by Andrés Parra), president of a small Chilean football club who rises from obscurity to become a key piece in a 150-million-dollar bribery conspiracy alongside Julio Grondona, the long-serving president of the Argentine Football Association, played by Luis Margani.⁴^•⁵ In the series, Grondona narrates the story after his death, revealing how the football business enriched him and other regional figures, the bribes they enjoyed, and the meetings at the Conmebol hotel in Luque, Paraguay.⁴

The real Jadue won the presidency of Chile's ANFP (the national football association) on January 7, 2011, and left the country for Miami as an FBI protected witness almost five years later, on November 17, 2015, a trajectory that fed the series.⁸

Development and production

The project originated about four years before its premiere with an idea from journalist and screenwriter Rodrigo Fluxá, presented to the production company Fábula in mid-2016 and based on his chronicle "Jadue en caída libre" in Revista Sábado. Fábula, led by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larraín, saw international potential in the story; a Corfo development grant followed at the end of 2016, and writing for Amazon began within a year.⁸ Luis Barrales and later the Argentines Martín Méndez and Javier Rozenwasser joined the writing team, and a key early decision made Julio Grondona the narrator of the eight episodes, an idea attributed to Pablo Larraín, who was for a time considered as the series' director before Armando Bo's arrival.⁸

Tone and rewrites. Bo took the material in an ironic, parodic direction, taking liberties with the real history. The FBI agent Harris gained a much larger role and her own point of view, the wife character Nené was given a perspective she lacked in early drafts, and the story became more international; the arrest of the Conmebol leadership in Zürich was moved from episode two to episode six during rewrites.⁸ Bo described the aim as laughing at "the circus of football" while offering a different point of view on a story many already knew.⁹

Filming. The production recreated events such as the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the 2015 Copa América, mostly in Chile, using two crews that alternated every two episodes: while one filmed, the other prepared the following episodes, a system described as unprecedented in Chilean production. Art director Estefanía Larraín built Santiago sets standing in for the Mineirão stadium in Belo Horizonte and New York, under a schedule with very few shooting days per episode.⁸ Principal photography took place in Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, and the United States.⁴ For Bo, the series was his first experience in television series.¹⁰

Reception and awards

The series drew positive reviews; Rotten Tomatoes recorded a 100% Tomatometer from 11 critics for the first season.⁷ It earned an International Emmy Award nomination for Drama Series in 2021, and Andrés Parra won a PRODU Award for Best Lead Actor in 2020, with further PRODU wins for Best Showrunner (Armando Bo) and its cinematographers.⁶ Season 2 later won a Rockie Award at the Banff World Media Festival for Scripted Comedy Series, Non-English Language, and a Gold Telly Award.⁶ Javiera Balmaceda, Amazon Prime Video's Head of Originals for Argentina, Colombia, and Chile, credited the success to Bo and his team's passion for telling a Latin American story in which audiences felt represented.¹⁰

Second season

A second season, focused on corruption in Brazilian football, was confirmed in 2021 and entered production in 2022, with filming in locations in the Maldonado department of Uruguay among others.⁴^•¹¹ The new season shifted the series' guides from Grondona and Jadue to João Havelange and Jadue, and added Albano Jerónimo and Maria Fernanda Cândido to the cast.¹² The season premiered in 2022, completing the series' 16 episodes.²

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Comedy, drama, and general-genre web series › Premiered 2017 to 2021

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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