Catalan crisis leaves Barca between rock and a hard place
Barcelona
president Josep Maria Bartomeu faces club members at an annual general
meeting on Saturday fighting an increasingly difficult battle to balance
the conflicting interests of fans in favor of Catalan independence and
millions of followers in the rest of Spain and around the world.
A
powerful symbol of Catalonia, Barça has been caught in the political
fire since a referendum for the independence of the wealthy region of
northeastern Spain, considered illegal by the central government of
Madrid, was affected by violent clashes when the police entered the urns to seize ballot boxes on October 1.That
Sunday afternoon, in conjunction with Barça's star-studded squad and
after La Liga refused to postpone a game against Las Palmas at the
club's iconic Camp Nou stadium, Bartomeu's board made the decision to
play door closed as a protest. Two board members subsequently waived the decision to go ahead with the game. "Our
position is very clear, we want dialogue," Bartomeu reiterated after
the Champions League victory over Olympiakos on Wednesday as the clash
between Catalan and Spanish governments continues. The
club has endorsed Catalonia's right to self-determination in a
referendum, but never supported any of the parties to the debate on
independence. Barca
displayed a square banner of almost 2,500 meters that showed the
message "Dialogue, respect, sport" before Wednesday's kickoff. However,
that was not enough for many just one day after two civil society
leaders in the pro-independence campaign were jailed on sedition
charges. The
National Assembly of Catalonia (ANC) and the Omnium Cultural groups led
by Jordi Sánchez and Jordi Cuixart were invited to the board of
directors at the Camp Nou in the middle of the week, but both rejected
the invitation. "We think FC Barcelona's message does not represent the feeling of the majority of the fan base," the ANC said in a statement. Both
groups had produced a banner requesting the release of Sánchez and
Cuixart that Barça prevented entering the stadium for fear of
retaliation by UEFA, which sanctions any demonstration of political
nature and has previously fined the club for flying flags in favor of
the separatists . -
'Never appeals to anyone' - However, with a membership of 150,000
members and 103 million Facebook followers, there are many fans of Barça
who would like the club to focus on points and not politics. "The
club should always be an example of respect for the plurality of
opinions among its members, who owns it, leaving aside the policy," said
several clubs of Barça supporters in the northern region of Leon in a
joint statement on Wednesday. "In political matters, Bartomeu is cursed," wrote the online newspaper El Confidencial on Thursday. "For
some it goes too far, for others it is not enough. No matter what I do,
it never appeals to anyone." Bartomeu, therefore, faces a membership on
Saturday, 92 percent of whom reside in Catalonia, an impossible mission. However, the 54-year-old soft-spoken entrepreneur is a serial survivor of several club crises. He
assumed the position of president after Sandro Rossell resigned because
of the muddy transfer he brought Neymar to Barcelona in 2013 and when
he was pressured to call early elections, he mounted the euphoria of
winning a triplet to secure a new term in 2015. The game from
Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain in August provoked a vow of mistrust of
disgruntled members who also did not get enough support to succeed. The
Brazilian has not been lost so far as Barça led the League and their
Champions League group with a surprising record of 10 wins and a draw in
their first 11 games in all competitions. And
one of the main orders on Saturday will be to approve a budget for the
new season backed by a record revenue of 897 million euros ($ 1.06
billion). Finance can be, ultimately, the turning point on Barca's position. La
Liga president Javier Tebas admitted this week that television rights
contracts at the height of the league would lose at least 20 percent of
their value should Barça remain adrift in an independent state. And the financial repercussions for Barça would be even more severe. "They
could not have leading figures in the world," said José María Gay de
Liébana, an economics professor at the University of Barcelona, told
AFP about a squad that currently has players such as five-time Lionel
Player of the Year Messi.
A
powerful symbol of Catalonia, Barça has been caught in the political
fire since a referendum for the independence of the wealthy region of
northeastern Spain, considered illegal by the central government of
Madrid, was affected by violent clashes when the police entered the urns to seize ballot boxes on October 1.That
Sunday afternoon, in conjunction with Barça's star-studded squad and
after La Liga refused to postpone a game against Las Palmas at the
club's iconic Camp Nou stadium, Bartomeu's board made the decision to
play door closed as a protest. Two board members subsequently waived the decision to go ahead with the game. "Our
position is very clear, we want dialogue," Bartomeu reiterated after
the Champions League victory over Olympiakos on Wednesday as the clash
between Catalan and Spanish governments continues. The
club has endorsed Catalonia's right to self-determination in a
referendum, but never supported any of the parties to the debate on
independence. Barca
displayed a square banner of almost 2,500 meters that showed the
message "Dialogue, respect, sport" before Wednesday's kickoff. However,
that was not enough for many just one day after two civil society
leaders in the pro-independence campaign were jailed on sedition
charges. The
National Assembly of Catalonia (ANC) and the Omnium Cultural groups led
by Jordi Sánchez and Jordi Cuixart were invited to the board of
directors at the Camp Nou in the middle of the week, but both rejected
the invitation. "We think FC Barcelona's message does not represent the feeling of the majority of the fan base," the ANC said in a statement. Both
groups had produced a banner requesting the release of Sánchez and
Cuixart that Barça prevented entering the stadium for fear of
retaliation by UEFA, which sanctions any demonstration of political
nature and has previously fined the club for flying flags in favor of
the separatists . -
'Never appeals to anyone' - However, with a membership of 150,000
members and 103 million Facebook followers, there are many fans of Barça
who would like the club to focus on points and not politics. "The
club should always be an example of respect for the plurality of
opinions among its members, who owns it, leaving aside the policy," said
several clubs of Barça supporters in the northern region of Leon in a
joint statement on Wednesday. "In political matters, Bartomeu is cursed," wrote the online newspaper El Confidencial on Thursday. "For
some it goes too far, for others it is not enough. No matter what I do,
it never appeals to anyone." Bartomeu, therefore, faces a membership on
Saturday, 92 percent of whom reside in Catalonia, an impossible mission. However, the 54-year-old soft-spoken entrepreneur is a serial survivor of several club crises. He
assumed the position of president after Sandro Rossell resigned because
of the muddy transfer he brought Neymar to Barcelona in 2013 and when
he was pressured to call early elections, he mounted the euphoria of
winning a triplet to secure a new term in 2015. The game from
Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain in August provoked a vow of mistrust of
disgruntled members who also did not get enough support to succeed. The
Brazilian has not been lost so far as Barça led the League and their
Champions League group with a surprising record of 10 wins and a draw in
their first 11 games in all competitions. And
one of the main orders on Saturday will be to approve a budget for the
new season backed by a record revenue of 897 million euros ($ 1.06
billion). Finance can be, ultimately, the turning point on Barca's position. La
Liga president Javier Tebas admitted this week that television rights
contracts at the height of the league would lose at least 20 percent of
their value should Barça remain adrift in an independent state. And the financial repercussions for Barça would be even more severe. "They
could not have leading figures in the world," said José María Gay de
Liébana, an economics professor at the University of Barcelona, told
AFP about a squad that currently has players such as five-time Lionel
Player of the Year Messi.
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