Friday, May 18th, 2012
It was two days ago but today’s Spanish sport dailys are still dominated by the fallout from Wednesday’s Super Copa. Who’s fault was it? Are Madrid too physical or do Barcelona exaggerate? Why did Mourinho poke Tito Vilanova in the eye? Was he provoked? Is he just crazy? How will this affect the Spanish national team? And so on and so on.
On the surface the media are outraged and worried about the image of Spain abroad. Underneath, they’re delighted to have another scandal to fill the pages of their newspaper and a license to go on whipping up more controversy. And that’s the crux of the whole episode for me, it’s not important. There must be more important issues in Spanish football than the childish, attention seeking histrionics of 30 or so spoiled, overpaid players and coaching staff?
Perhaps the fact that the opening weekend of the league season has been called off because of a players strike is a tad more important? The fact that 11 clubs, including all three recently promoted sides, are in administration surely deserves as many headlines? Maybe the story of Javi Povés, the Sporting Gijón player who retired at 24 stating football is capitalism, it’s dead, should be examined a bit more closely? Falling attendances, high ticket prices, ridiculous kick off times, foreign owners and corruption at the top-level to name but a few are all surely far more important?
What happened two days ago was the equivalent of two school children arguing over who started a playground skirmish. Who called who what. The problem is that we’re so obsessed with the children that we’re ignoring the fact that the school is falling down.
Tags: Opinion, Real Madrid vs Barcelona, Spanish Football, Spanish media, Supercopa fallout
Wholeheartedly agree with the general sentiment of the article but maybe not with some of the real issues listed:
- the bit about Javi Povés is actually not really fitting here, as the whole story was a bit fake, he simply was a poor player and that affected his decision of quiting football strongly
- foreign owners are not really a problem on its own, some of them are fine, others not, same can be said about Spanish owners
- new kick off times are OK (match at 12 is too much, but other ones are fine too me)
To the list of problems I would add racism which now is present even at Camp Nou apparently.
But again, the general point of the article hits the spot.