BarcelonaA Manchester fan takes the ball and, as if it were a sport halfway between football and basketball, he sends it with a shot against one of the highest windows in Plaça Reial de Barcelona il’basket on the balcony He celebrates the feat and the square, full of fans, erupts in a shout. A woman comes out of the balcony, frightened by the impact, and keeps the ball while the crowd insults her from the square. It is the latest example of the conflicts between the people who live and work in this area of the Gothic Quarter and the fans of football teams who have become accustomed to congregating there during the hours before the match. And in some cases, also during the game.
The balcony that received the impact is that of the Setba foundation, dedicated to art and culture, which prefers not to make any statement about the events. The episode adds to previous controversies such as when, in 2019, a street vendor and a tourist ended up being pushed into the fountain when Liverpool fans gathered there.
After the pandemic stopped, the controversy returned last Thursday for these rallies, which already served as a more peaceful appetizer when Eintracht Frankfurt fans took Barcelona last April. This time, it was before the match between Barça and Manchester and United, when hundreds of people gathered for hours, beer in hand, in Plaça Reial. According to some residents, the level of incivility was more prominent than on other occasions. “We can’t allow them to throw balls at our windows or find our balconies full of cans because they responded with throws when a neighbor, fed up with the noise, threw water at them,” explains a neighbor. “It is inconceivable that they are allowed to throw the ball against the windows as if nothing happened,” adds a neighbor, who says he called 112 twice that day.
Manchester United fans at Plaça Reial in Barcelona last week.
Some of the (few) residents of the square are, in fact, organized in a WhatsApp group and are already warning the police in a coordinated way. “If we don’t call a lot, they don’t pay any attention to us,” they complain. A criticism repeated by some managers of the bars who, although they do not hide that these concentrations make them increase their cash, ensure that the square ends up full of cans (as evidenced by the trail of abandoned cans on the ground). And that it is difficult for them to manage the mass and, above all, to convince the concentrated that they must return the glasses or free the tables at closing time. We are no longer talking about avoiding ball drives. Or the excess of decibels, which are two battles that no one is fighting anymore. Some of the bars hired private security this last time because, they say, fans started arriving two days earlier and were afraid of what the situation might be like on game day. And some also moved up the closing time on Thursday to avoid trouble.
“They peed on the fountain and the trees”
“They haven’t seen so many animals in a long time,” confirms the worker at one of the bars in the square. “They were very drunk and peed in the fountain and in the trees,” adds another. But there are also those who emphasize that they “behaved better” than on other occasions. One of the repeated complaints is that public toilets of those portables were not installed there and the bins were not reinforced. “They got along well enough if you take into account that they drank a lot, the problem is that no provision was made for services”, diagnoses a restaurateur.
“It’s as if the police are fine with having them locked up here, they control access to the square and don’t do anything else,” criticizes Carles Casahuga, from the Amics de la Plaça Reial platform. He is already very critical of the usual level of noise in the square (with many musical performances with loudspeakers of those that were banned a few years ago in the center of Barcelona) and says that on the days when there are concentrations of this type the situation becomes “unbearable”. For this reason, as does the architect Beth Galí, who also lives in the square, she asks the City Council to recover what it did years ago, when they were enabled fan zones away from the most central streets to avoid this inconvenience to the neighbors. “What can’t be is that they don’t let the neighbors live”, says Galí, who already sent an open letter to the mayoress, through the pages of the ARA, proposing solutions against the noise And Betevé advanced the idea of recovering the known as a fan zone.
Secluded areas
In 2009, for example, when around 700 Bayern Munich fans were expected to arrive in Barcelona without a ticket to watch the game, a tent was set up in Port Olímpic. The following year, an area was created for Inter Milan fans in Plaça del Maremàgnum. And there have also been ones next to the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc or in the area of the Forum. But the City Council assures that assemblies of this type in the city center have been ruled out for years and that there are no plans to organize them in more peripheral locations either. In these spaces, as is also the case with the gatherings in Plaça Reial, the municipal ban on consuming alcohol in the street reigned supreme.
In any case, the City Council insists that the competence to control these concentrations lies with the Mossos d’Esquadra, who are in charge of controlling public order. And from the Association of Friends and Merchants of Plaça Reial, they point out that they want to open talks with Barça and the Ciutat Vella district about the situation in the square. Look for solutions, they say, but do so with an eye on the medium term and not with the urgency of the latest controversy.
