Friday, October 06, 2006

Catalan national teams

Spain has done everything possible to suppress the Catalan and Basque country national teams. This weekend Catalonia is playing an "international" soccer match against the Basque country.
Spain would have no problems to play against Wales, Scotland or even the disputed colony of Gibraltar, but it would never agree to play against Catalonia.

The pro Catalan national team movement, created the enclosed TV ad to support the Catalan team. The ad was banned yesterday by a judge. Judge by yourself.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pues mira,te doyu la razon 100 porc cien.Yo empece a tener problemas de trabajo porque no tenia el nivel C de Catalan en el 1992,pero hablaba ingles bastante bien.Pedi la emigracion a USA y despues de 13 anos ya soy ciudadano de aqui,con un trabajo increible y con un futuro ya que estoy preparando las pruebas para el Foreign Service yankee,es decir, ser diplomatico yankee en algun lugar de habla espanola o francesa (soy medio belga).
Por eso animo a todos los catalanes entre los 25 y 40 a darle bien al ingles,la lengua del futuro por hoy.

AlbertJB said...

Y qué tiene que ver esto con el post?

I think this ban will benefit pro Catalan supporters just because all bans result in the opposite effect to that desired.

Anonymous said...

They are playing right now.
I don't really care about football but I do think that it is important to have a team in Catalunya, in Euskadi as it is important to have one in Scotland. Though, the recognition of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and England as different countries within a country is far from the actual situation of Spain. We a Federation? Do you think we are going to see it? We prefer the actual pseudo-federation we have as the pseudo-nationality, and the pseudo-team.

ian llorens said...

Anonymous,
It is hard to believe that someone in 1992 would have to leave Catalonia because of the C levels in Catalan language. It is also hard to understand that someone who speaks, I assume, Spanish, French, Italian and English as you, would have a hard time to learn Catalan (I learnt pretty good Italian in a 3 week intensive course).
Anyway, I think that if you were not happy in Catalonia, you did the right thing going somewhere else. USA is a good place to live and I wish you all the best in your career as diplomat.

Rab said...

Just to clarify: Wales has a national team but its top teams play in the English leagues. Cardiff will probably get promoted to the Premierleague this season.

Nevertheless the argument applies in the reverse: would the other teams (R Madrid, Valencia, etc) be happy to forgo the revenue and publicity of having a team like Barcelona in the league? When this issue is discussed in French football, they say they would be happy to accommodate Barça in the French league!

ian llorens said...

Rab,
The general FIFA membership rule has 2 exceptions:
- Each of the four British Associations is recognised as a separate Member of FIFA.
- An Association in a region which has not yet gained independence may, with the authorisation of the Association in the country on which it is dependent, also apply for admission to FIFA.

Therefore even if Wales only had a kindergardeners' league and would play with watermelons instead of balls, they would qualify as members, because of that specific clause included in the FIFA statutes.

However my point wanted to go beyond that. Many times we, Catalans, want everything and we do not want to make tough choices. We want a soccer national team, but we like to see Barcelona play against Real Madrid in the league. No one would care much if the match was against Paris St Germaine, but we enjoy (I do not, but many do) to watch a Barcelona-Madrid match.
Real life is different, we need to make tough choices, we did not get a special clause in the FIFA statute and if we want to make our point, we cannot try to win in all fronts or we will lose them all, as we normally do.

Rab said...

OK I see your point now. Well, if I am ever lucky enough to choose, I would have no hesitation: independence.

And I am a Barça member since age 14. I like football, but only up to a point! :-)

Anonymous said...

tiene razon ian, hay que elegir, o seleccion propia y liga propia o no seleccion y dentro de la liga, y para el amigo rab, para el madrid, valencia seria genial que el barca, at madrid, ellos son mas, se irian 2-3 equipos y permanecerian entre 16-18, y por otro lado la liga francesa no aceptaria un equipo como el barcelona para evitar que los corsos o bretones siguieron sus pasos y evitar que se reprodujera el fenomeno en italia (lombardia), belgica, alemania, el tema es como dice llorens, navegar solos pero de verdad, esa es la eleccion, algo q no se quiere por pura comodidad e hipocrosia, pero los divorcios a nadie le salen baratos

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