Reinaldo Sánchez

Reinaldo del Carmen Sánchez Olivares, known across Chilean football as Reinaldo Sánchez and nicknamed Don Choco, was a Valparaíso Region transport entrepreneur who became one of the most consequential club and league administrators in modern Chilean football. Born on 17 October 1944 in Viña del Mar, he attended the Ruben Castro school and briefly studied mechanics at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso without taking a degree. He built a large minibus fleet serving the Valparaíso Region, later leading Cooperativa Expresos Viña and the Higher Transport Council of the region, and became a familiar union and business figure in local transport.

A Santiago Wanderers member from 1976, Sánchez became club president in 1992 after the Decano had just been relegated from Primera Division. He steered Wanderers back to the top flight, through another brief relegation and return, and in 2001 capped his first presidential era with the club's third Chilean Primera title, still its most recent national championship. Shortly afterward he left the club to run for the presidency of the Asociación Nacional de Fútbol Profesional. On 24 September 2001 he defeated Luis Alberto Simián by 27 votes to 16 and took office on 1 October 2001, also heading the Chilean Football Federation.

His ANFP years (2001-2006) are remembered for two contrasting threads. On the business side he and Jorge Claro helped create Canal del Fútbol (CDF) in 2003, a television rights vehicle that became central to financing Chilean clubs. Chile also won hosting rights for the 2008 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup. On the pitch the national team struggled, finishing bottom of 2002 World Cup qualifying and missing Germany 2006 after managerial changes from Juvenal Olmos to Nelson Acosta. Sánchez resigned on 5 October 2006 and was succeeded by Harold Mayne-Nicholls.

After a difficult break with Wanderers in 2007 and years largely outside daily football politics, Sánchez returned as majority owner and president in 2021. The senior side suffered relegation that season, yet in 2026 the club's U-20 team won the Copa Libertadores Sub-20, becoming the first Chilean club to do so, before losing to Real Madrid in the Intercontinental final in Spain, a trip Sánchez could not make for health reasons. He died on 24 September 2026 at Clínica Reñaca in the Viña del Mar area, aged 81, twenty-five years to the day after his ANFP election. Santiago Wanderers called him the greatest administrator in the club's history and said his legacy would live in Valparaíso and Chilean football.