Chilean president, miners to play football

COPIAPO - Chilean President Sebastian Pinera is to host the miners rescued from a collapsed mine for a football match Oct 25 in Santiago, he said Thursday.

“We are going to play a football match. The winning team stays at (the presidential palace) La Moneda, and the losers go back to the mine,” Pinera joked with reporters.

After visiting the recovering miners at Copiapo Regional Hospital, he said that “the gates are wide open” for the miners at the presidential palace.

The 33 miners were rescued Wednesday after spending 69 days in a mine 700 metres under the Atacama Desert.