Barcelona – More than a club?

TRANSCRIPT

 

00:12 - VOICE 1:  This is home for the Catalans!

 

00:21 - VOICE 2: Supporting Barça, and being from here, is Catalanist.

 

00:30 - VOICE 3:  We are a Catalanist club and we defend the Catalan culture.

 

00:39 - Presenter (Sid Lowe): Only football? It's often said that football and politics shouldn't mix, but the reality is, they do.

 

00:49 – CROWD CHANT: Independence!

 

00:58 - Presenter: With elections looming and the Catalan independence movement growing, what role does Barcelona – the club – play in this political process? And to what extent does it represent Catalonia as a society? And, when they talk about being 'more than a club', what do they mean?

 

01:14 - Victor Muñoz, former FC Barcelona player: 'More than a club' means feelings, it means a political idea of freedom and passion, passion for football.

 

01:29 – Pedro, FC Barcelona winger: Moreover, there is a philosophy, values, that they teach you from when you are young and it's something that exists only in a few teams.

 

01:35 - Josep Maria Félez, Penya Sant Cugat president: If [the politicians] couldn't get people together outside, they could in a football stadium, with Barça. That was where being Catalan was expressed.

 

01:46 – BANNER reads - 'We are a nation, we decide'

 

01:49 - Toni Strubell, Solidaritat Catalana politician: The Spanish can not digest what is happening in Catalonia. The leaders from the Spanish political world try their best to hide the Catalan reality from the view of the Spanish people. A great majority of people have become pro-independence. The polls indicate 57% are in favour of independence and 21% or 22% against. There has been a revolution in a country that hasn't been very political, it’s a pre-political sensation, but everybody sees that with Spain there is nothing to be done.

 

02:33 - Oriol Pujol, General secretary, Convergence and Union party: This issue has been like lava from a volcano, when it erupted with great force in September when 1.5 million people took to the streets during the Catalan National Day protest.

 

02:52 - BANNER reads - 'Spain, we want a divorce!'

 

03:02 - VOICEOVER: Catalonia has not always had such freedom of expression. Under the military dictatorship of General Franco, Catalans weren't allowed to express their nationalism, or speak their language.

 

03:12 - Carles Santacana, Historian, University of Barcelona: Franco didn’t want to attack Barça. It was not his obsession, but he was obsessed with Catalonia. As Barça came to represent Catalonia before the war, he acted against Barça as well after 1939 [end of the Spanish civil war].

 

03:32 - Jordi Medina, Crit Valent fan group: Barça led the Catalan social feeling during Francoism because there was no other popular way of expression allowed outside the Camp Nou. Nowadays Barça doesn’t have this role anymore, Barça doesn’t have to lead.

 

03:54 - Carles Vilarrubí, Vice-president, FC Barcelona: Barça shares the DNA of the Catalan society and the Catalans.

 

04:03 - FAN 1: More than a club: The maximum. It can’t be more. The top.

 

04:07 - FAN 2: There is no other team in the world that is more than a club.

 

04:12 - FAN 3: Barça is the maximum expression of Catalanism.

 

04:17 - Carles Vilarrubí: The history of Barça is directly related to the history of Catalonia. It represents the identity of a country, of a nation, without statehood, but of a nation with its own culture and its own language. Politically, we don’t choose sides. But what it is clear

is that our bond is with the Catalan people. Therefore we won’t separate from them, whatever the consequences.

 

04:50 - VOICEOVER: Not everyone shares the view of the club's benign political role. Joan Laporta was the most successful and most politically driven president in Barcelona's history. Since leaving the club he has been heavily involved in Catalan politics.

 

05:05 - Joan Laporta, Former president, FC Barcelona: The Catalans had two options. Either do nothing and continue as we were … which would have been a disaster, we were falling down. It was like falling out of the window. Or there is the option that has never been tried, which is to give as a solution the process for the independence of Catalonia.

 

05:29 - Now in every Barça match, the 17th minute and 14th second belongs to 1714, when we lost our rights and charters. There is the independence shout. That has great significance. We are living in an historic and unique moment in our history. From the beginning, for me, being president of Barça was another way of promoting and defending the rights and freedom of Catalonia.

 

06:03 - VOICEOVER: One man that symbolised that fight almost more than the Catalans themselves, was the Dutchman Johan Cruyff, who joined the club in the 1970s

 

06:12 - Johan Cruyff, Former player and manager, FC Barcelona: It's not been just a football club. It was social. Afterwards in the Franco time, or maybe even before, it was some sort of a protest, where everyone could be part of a club – part of a movement.

 

06:28 - Sid Lowe: Do you think Barcelona has lost some of that identity?

 

06:31 - Johan Cruyff: Yes.

 

06:31 - Sid Lowe: Has it lost that sense?

 

06:32 - Johan Cruyff: Well, a lot of people, they don't write about it, don't want to see it. It's a pity because a lot of people need it. Especially today, in these circumstances now.

 

06:43 - Sid Lowe: How do you see Barcelona's role in this current process towards independence?

 

06:47 - Johan Cruyff: The club must be very careful that they can't be used for one, and they can't be used for the other. That's why their attitude is one of the most important things. And sometimes, it's a battle. You know it's a battle. When things are changing you've got to change with it.

 

07:07 - VOICEOVER: With the prospect of huge political change sweeping across the region, the role of the club is also evolving.

 

07:13 - Oriol Pujol: Here there is a tourism sector, a business sector, an industrial sector, there is literature and there is a language, a language. Although it has helped a lot, the nation is much more than Barça.

 

07:30 - Toni Strubell: I think Barça provides the background music. It is not the lyrics but the music. Barça is the elegant accompaniment in the movement towards Catalan independence.

 

07:46 - Carles Vilarrubí: FC Barcelona lives facing society. So what happens to society affects Barça. But what Barça has never been and will not be is a protagonist and political leader.

 

08:04 - Oriol Pujol: It is the people in the streets who have to show the way to our own state, or to get independence. We cannot give this responsibility to something that is just football, like Barça, even though it is more than a club.

 

08:25 – TITLE SLIDE

 

With thanks to

 

FC Barcelona

Sky Sports

Mediaproducción, SL

Cercle Català de Negocis

David Acedo

La Ronda, Canal Catala

Penya Blaugrana Sant Cugat

 

08:32 - ENDS