Gustavo Petro published a post on X on 07.06.2026 at 13:34 that featured a montage of Yerry Mina and included the phrase "Dignidad o nostalgia de hidalgos esclavistas," touching off a fresh round of support and rejection across social media.
The images in the post juxtaposed two moments: one of Mina shaking hands with Petro during the official handover of the national flag at CATAM in Bogotá on Thursday, and another showing Mina smiling with former president Álvaro Uribe during a visit years earlier to one of Uribe's farms. The montage and the loaded wording quickly drew reactions from users who defended Mina and from others who criticized Petro's characterization.
The publication arrived in the middle of a politically charged day. Earlier on Thursday Petro had reposted a video his daughter Antonella Petro posted calling for unity around the national team — a message he amplified at 11:11 on 07.06.2026 with a line in Spanish that framed his daughter's appeal: "Antonella Petro le habla a James y le pide a toda Colombia apoyar la selección Colombia." Antonella's video included the plea: "A nuestra selección hay que apoyarla con unidad. En la cancha somos un solo país. Cuando vuelvan del Mundial acá los estaremos esperando con los brazos abiertos y ojalá ahí ya me pueda tomar la foto." Users later said James Rodríguez had ignored a request for a photo during the CATAM event, a separate flashpoint that fed the day's online debate.
The timing of Petro's two posts — the supportive repost in the morning and the critical montage roughly one hour later — is the clearest friction in the episode. That sequence heightened questions about motive and timing: observers asked whether a call for unity and a politically pointed montage belonged in the same message cycle while the team prepares for its last friendly before the 2026 World Cup.
Reaction was immediate but uneven. Some social media users praised Petro's candor; others said the post unfairly dragged a national-team player into partisan quarrels at a delicate moment for Colombia's football program. The post did not include any explicit call for discipline or action against Mina, and no formal response from the player, the national team, or federation officials has been announced.
Officials and team representatives have not issued a public statement tying the post to selection, discipline, or the federation's relationship with players. The montage's most concrete elements — the flag-handover photo taken at CATAM and the older image with Uribe — are verifiable moments placed against a loaded phrase that reopened debate about politics intersecting with sport.
The central unanswered question now is practical: will Petro's post change anything beyond the online conversation? With Colombia due to play its final friendly ahead of the 2026 World Cup, the most consequential gap is whether the social media dispute will prompt any formal action by the team, a response from Mina's camp, or further intervention from political actors who have already been entwined in the day's events.
