POLITICS and FUTBOL
(Author's note: As noted on this work's introductory page, the
author spends 2 months of every year in Spain. Being
a person with jock-like tendencies, he has become familiar with the sport
we call "soccer" and what the rest of the world calls "football". In Spain it
is "futbol".)
(6/02)
One cannot understand what "futbol" means to Spain without
having profoundly lived the socio-political reality of the country. Our
sporting rivalries in the United States, if we examine the facts maturely and objectively, are no more than
adolescent expressions of contrived loyalties accompanied with flood-like
quantities of beer. Not only are the players
pure mercenaries, so are the teams! The perpetual guillotine of relocation
hangs over the neck of all commercial athletics in American sport. "Build
me a new stadium", "support the team or else", etc., have almost become
traditional folk tunes for ownership always looking for greener pastures,
for ownership that is probably not even a part of the local tradition.
This blackmail hardly exists in Spain because
the teams are not really business enterprises,
but Sporting Clubs or Societies in representation of dues paying membership.
Although the players and coaches come from all over Spain and
the world, the people who make the decisions --- the Board of Directors
--- are almost always representatives of the local area. Not only would
such a Club or Sporting Society never consider moving, no other place
in Spain would
accept it. It's not "them". Relocation would be the antithesis of what
these teams mean.
Spanish "futbol" is not just a way to amuse oneself for a few hours.
The sport is woven directly into the political fabric of the country.
Certain teams stand for certain things and cultural-ethnic rivalries going
back centuries are manifested in these teams.
All foreigners with an acceptable level of intellectual curiosity
are aware of the Basque people, almost exclusively for the terrorism associated
with their yearnings for an independent state. Although the Basques are
much more than that and the politics of all this is more complicated than
any outsider could possibly understand, they do have a very strong cultural-ethnic
identity, one they are more loyal to than their role as Spanish citizens.
The great city of the Basque country is Bilbao, and its "futbol"
team, Athletic Bilbao, is more than just the home team. Only people of
Basque descent can play for "Athletic". While the rest of the world's
soccer clubs are contracting players from all over the globe, the signature
team of the Basque country is limiting its pool of talent to 5 or 6 million
people. To make things even more difficult, when a Basque consecrates
himself as a great player, he will generally leave the home sod for the
big money offered by more powerful clubs. In spite of these cogent disadvantages,
Athletic Bilbao has won a league championship here and there, generally
finishes in the top half of the standings, and has never dropped out of
the Big Leagues of Spanish "futbol", the First Division. (In Spain, as in all soccer countries, a team has to earn its right to play
at the level it does.) There is no professional team in any sport anywhere
that more closely represents the "tribe", that is more directly an extension
of who and what the home crowd is, than Athletic Bilbao.
The city of Pamplona is world famous for the "running of the bulls". It sits on the edge
of the Basque country and is home to "Ossasuna", a professional soccer
team that usually plays on the borderline between the First and Second
Division. In the last 3 or 4 years it has managed to hold onto its place
in "Primera" (first), much to the chagrin of the Spanish government because
Ossasuna reputedly has ties to "ETA". (ETA is an acronym for something
in the Basque language, a sound system the most accomplished military
code breaker would have trouble cracking.) ETA is the militant wing of
Basque separatism. ETA is to the Basque country what "Hamas" is to the
Palestinians. Suffice it to say that the fans at Ossasuna's home games
are what Rodney Dangerfield would call a "tough crowd". And yet .
. what I've just spoken about in the Basque
country is far from being the main event in Spanish political-ethnic confrontation.
One cannot really understand the bitterness of the rivalry between the
Barcelona Futbol Club and Real (ray-ahl') Madrid without understanding
the political reality of Spain.
Barcelona and Spain are cities roughly the same size (4 to 5 million) that represent Spain's
most important cultural-economic centers. Quite logically, these two cities
manifest a concentration of wealth that does not exist in other parts
of the country, thus creating an economic clout that is reflected in their
"futbol" clubs. It is the exception rather than the rule when one of these
two clubs does not win the championship of Spanish "futbol". (In Spain, there
is none of this crybaby, revenue sharing, salary cap attempts at "parity".
Everyone accepts who they are and competes nobly with the resources at
their disposal.) In each city's case, their "futbol" club is one of the
most recognizable emblems of its success and identity.
Most people outside Spain do
not realize that Madrid and Barcelona represent two distinct national identities. Everyone knows that Madrid is the capital
of the country and its 40 million Spaniards. What most people don't
know is that Barcelona is the capital and reference point for a section of the Iberian Peninsula known as Catalunya
(in English, Catalonia). The native language there is Catalan, a Latin tongue as different
from Spanish as Italian, French or Portuguese. With the marriage of Ferdinand
and Isabel in 1492, it was absorbed into the Spanish state we know today,
but it has never lost its identity or language. The Catalan people do
not consider themselves Spaniards, even though they are not officially
in rebellion as some of the Basques are. Down through the centuries, this
tenacity of the Catalan people to hold on to their identity, this stubborn
refusal to truly give their hearts and souls to the Spanish state they
are a part of, has created a line of tension that runs directly from Madrid
to Barcelona. The central government, spitefully reacting to this snub,
has always found ways to stick it to the Catalans, who, in turn, have
always felt they'd be better off without "Spain".
The plot thickened with the conclusion of the fratricidal butchery
known as the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). When Franco and his Fascists
came to power, there was a concerted effort to subdue this Catalan affront
to the paternal rule of Spain. At the heart of this policy was the elimination of the Catalan language.
Its use was forbidden in the schools, courts, and any form of governmental
activity. All street signs and towns had to use their Castilian (Spanish)
names in place of their Catalan names.
After WWII, when the human race had finally fought itself out and
had decided to get on with it, "futbol" became an integral element in
this tense marriage between Spain and Catalunya. Franco, whose fascist regime was now looked upon with
great suspicion by those who had just conquered fascist Germany, decided
to use Real Madrid as a showcase for his regime. With the direct help
of his government, it became the most powerful club in Europe. To this day, no club has won as many European club championships
as Real Madrid, the vast majority having come in the early to middle years
of Franco's Catholic tyranny. Vestiges of this kind of patronage still
exist. The conservative government now in power has recently found a way
to funnel public funds towards the construction of a state of the art
training facility for Real Madrid. There can be no doubt that such shenanigans
are the Spanish way of delivering a backhanded slap to those snot nosed
Catalans.
The last few years have not been very good ones for the Barcelona
Futbol Club. Anything less than a league title is disappointing, and,
once again, it never really contended in 2001-2002, finishing 4th
in a 20 team league. The only ray of light in this overcast sky was that
Real Madrid did not win either, that honor going to Valencia
for the first time in 31 years. (Valencia,
an anti-fascist stronghold during the Civil War, has also suffered the
wrath of Franco's futbol politics.) During the regular season, Barcelona's home stadium,
Camp Nou, with a capacity for one hundred thousand people, did not sell out
once, generally falling 20 to 25 thousand spectators short. But there
was one game that did sell out:
Once a year, the unofficial Catalan National team (the Seleccio'
de Catalunya) plays an exhibition game just after the regular season.
This year's opponent was the Brazilian National Team, which was in the
final phases of its World Cup preparations. Although the Brazilians are
always an attractive spectacle, this is not why 100 thousand people showed
up. When the unofficial National Team of Catalunya makes its annual appearance,
the opponent could be the Welsh Boys Choir and 100 thousand people would
show up. It is much more a political act than a soccer match. It is an
immense gathering of the tribe, complete with flags, banners, signs and
patriotic revelry. One immense banner, strung across the railing of an
upper deck, read, in English, "Catalonia is not
Spain".
So the next time you think the Yankees and Red Sox hate each other
.
(Post Script - I write this note on 3/12/04, just a
few days after the massive terrorist explosions at the Atocha Station
in Madrid killed almost
200 people and injured thousands more. I was retouching this essay in
anticipation of its appearance on this website at the beginning of April
when the horrifying news broke. The primary suspect in the case is ETA.
I can't decide if this essay seems more trivial or more relevant in the
light of such news. Probably a bit of both.)
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