A hackneyed assertion in the world of entertainment ensures that “the public is sovereign” and, therefore, has the right to opine already manifest being able to censor the performances of the protagonists for whom he pays to see them act. If Andrés Iniesta’s goal in the World Cup final in South Africa earned the man from La Mancha a continuous tribute in all the stadiums in Spain, from which he was applauded in the 2010-11 season as thanks for sewing the first star on the jacket of the selection, the explosion of the Negreira case has disastrous consequences for the Barcelona at the image level.
With the case in the Court of Instruction number 1 of Barcelona after the complaint of the former referee Fernandez Road and the complaint by the Prosecutor’s Office, the honesty of the arbitration body and the merit of the titles won by the Barça club are in question, which has shaken the foundations of Spanish football. A scandal that has also warmed up the mood of the fanswhich has generated several protest movements that are being put into practice in the fields that Barcelona visits.
If at the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s the song spread “So so so wins Madrid” (after a controversial meeting of the white team in El Molinón) every time any dubious play that affected the merengue club arose, in recent weeks the fans of other teams have begun to protest with mockery against Barcelona for the hiring of the former referee Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, between 2001 and 2018, while he was vice president of the Technical Committee of Referees. A relationship that has unleashed suspicions about the impartiality of the arbitration group when directing the matches of Barça and its direct rivals.
In the run-up to the Copa del Rey match between the Barça team and the Real Madrid last week, the surroundings of the Bernabéu were covered with 500-euro bills on which Joan Laporta’s face was stamped. That meeting became the perfect platform for the madridistas to protest against the institutional silence that their club kept. to the cry of “Corruption in the Federation”thousands of white fans demonstrated at the gates of the stadium, with banners against the CTA and the RFEF and throwing the tickets.
Tickets in San Mamés
This initiative will continue this Sunday in San Mamés and, possibly, from now on also in many of the fields that the Catalan club still has to play. The IC Public Stand, one of the groups that occupy the entertainment stands in the North Tribune of the Bilbao stadium, has asked to throw printed tickets onto the field for the occasion as a form of protest. This association has enabled a link from which you can download a banknote simulation in which the Barcelona shield, the dollar sign and the word mafia appear. “Download, print and call them by name. Mafia. The Negreira case is just the tip of the iceberg. In the 30th minute of the Barça game, show them your anger, “they point out.
An ironic and striking initiative that is not expected to negatively affect the players during the match despite the hostile environment they will find. “It is an issue that worries and occupies… It is a question for the president. He says that we are for football and that’s what I’m doing. We don’t talk about it. I don’t think it hurts us. It’s a game and we’re concentrating on strategy… we haven’t talked about anything else. Win or lose It doesn’t depend on what happens in the stands but on what happens on the field”, Xavi Hernández assured yesterday, aware that he needs to add the three points after Real Madrid’s victory against Espanyol and that he places the white team six points behind below in the table.
Nor does Ernesto Valverde believe that Barcelona will acknowledge the commotion that has been caused by the Negreira case: «I don’t see the team being very affected on the field. If they were third or fourth, well, the same, but they are first and they are outstanding. In great teams there is always noisy around to talk, but we have to focus on sports. The launch of tickets? People are free to express themselves as they see fit, but we focus on what’s happening on the pitch,” she says.
