History of Spanish football and the politics behind it
“In Spain it is hard to do anything without their consent,” were the words from ex-vice president of the LFP, Javier Tebas, in a clear reference to significant political figures in the history of Spanish politics.
Affairs of the State have played a huge part throughout the history of Spanish football. As a result, this is of huge significance in understanding the background to the Spanish mindset in comparison with their Anglo-Saxon or German counterparts.
There are socio-economic and cultural reasons behind your choice of club in Spain which is largely different to England.
Phil Ball, author of Morbo: The Story of Spanish Football, explains: “You can go to any pueblo (small town) in Spain and say: who do you support – Barca or Real? And they’ll give you an answer. And the answer they give you is not really football based. It’s a political, cultural answer.
“I know you can go to a pueblo in Galicia and they’ll say ‘Madrid’. It’s sort of weird (in comparison to the UK). Whereas in Grimsby I might say my second team is West Brom and you might say: ‘why’s that?’ I don’t know. I just like the colours. There are no political reasons behind it.
Ball then gives an analogy to describe how divisive football is in Spain: “Maybe it’s like the Daily Mail and the Guardian reader on the train. There’s no way they’re going to talk to each other.
“If you say you’re from Ipswich, say, no Brit will think ‘Ipswich, bloody fascists! Those bastards! The national civil war etc.’ You just think ‘Ipswich… tractors!’“
Ball added: “As soon as someone says they are from so and so, an idea comes into a Spaniard’s head, like from Burgos etc slightly to the right etc. I was in a bar once and a similar thing happened. It was then I decided to write Morbo.”
In no other country in Western Europe are politics and football so intrinsically linked. Sure, Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Burlosconi and AC Milan have been a story involving two such subjects but this has been a more recent development. In Spain it has been like it since day one, shortly after the creation of the first club back in 1889 – Recreativo Huelva. They were born out of English copper mine workers determination to bring the beautiful game to the country they were temporarily inhabiting.
Phil Ball writes in his book, Morbo: The Story of Spanish Football (Phil Ball, Morbo, page 40, 2003):
The locals would have learned the game from the British workers who had already begun to make their way north in those early days of the mines, but who would have spent time in the port of Huelva before travelling up by horse-drawn carriage to the copper reserves.
Soon to follow were Barcelona, from Catalunya, and Athletic Bilbao, from the Basque country. The latter of which still to this day proudly claim to have always had Basque players play for them. Historically, they are Spain’s fourth most successful club an achievement all the more remarkable considering the area they select their players from consists of just three million.
The first league championship, however, was not contested until 1927, by which time various other clubs had entered the fray, including Real Madrid. As it so happens, Barca won that first championship.
When discussing the history of Spanish football the figure of Spanish dictator Bobby Franco cannot be ignored.
Franco started appearing at the Santiago Bernabeu, Real’s stadium, as much as a publicity stunt as anything, having been encouraged by his aides that it might make him more popular if he is seen to be interested, not just in the game, but the team of the capital who were enjoying a period of success at the time – Real Madrid.
When interviewed, Phil Ball explained: “Real Madrid became the team of the regime via a series of co-incidences really. Franco wasn’t particularly interested in football. Madrid started winning and so somebody suggested it would be a good idea to be seen in the Bernabeu.
“It’s like when Tony Blair pretended to be a Newcastle fan. Just a publicity stunt to earn favour.”
Much is made of Franco’s influence on Spanish football and, in particular, Real’s success.
Sir Alex Ferguson once described Madrid as ‘Franco’s club’, which explains why the Manchester United boss is despised by media and fans alike in the Spanish capital.
Real had a remarkable period of success during Franco’s time but this owed much to the ability of the players they had, including Di Stefano, as it did to any intervention from the fascist dictator.
Phil Ball elaborates: “Barca had a great side in the 1950s, yet the reason they didn’t win stuff was because that’s when Madrid had their best side. The 50s is a bit like now. They were both fantastic. It’s just that Madrid were a bit better. They had Di Stefano. What’s the difference now? Barca have got Messi. All this crap about them (Barcelona) being oppressed and not being able to function – it’s not entirely true, only partly.”
He does concede that the dictator did have an influence, even if it was, more often than not, subliminal. “I think because people under a police state don’t behave normally,” Ball said. “There’s plenty of examples of that. Under a fascist police state, it’s not a question of Franco saying ‘go and pay that referee to influence this game’. It is just that people know that if they show dis-favour towards the team of the regime (Real Madrid) then they might suddenly find they have lost their jobs, not that they’re going to get chucked in the river with cement but a police state influences, doesn’t matter where it is, people’s behaviour.”
Ball does concede, however, that the acquisition of Di Stefano, the equivalent of Messi in his day, was thanks largely to Franco’s influence.
“It’s not been proved,” Ball added. “But it does look like a pretty blatant case (that Real’s acquisition of Di Stefano was as a result of Franco’s influence). Not even Di Stefano has admitted it but yeah (his signature was as a result of corruption).”
Franco perhaps did affect things on the pitch from time to time, though as Phil Ball wrote in Morbo:
(Ball, 2003)
The director of security went into their (Barcelona’s) dressing room before the game and allegedly told the team that some of them were only playing because of the regime’s generosity in permitting them to remain in the country.
The author then gives an example to back up his point. “If you’re living in San Sebastian and you say you support Real Madrid, it’s complicated.” This complication comes from the fact that San Sebastian is based in the Basque country, an area heavily suppressed during the Franco regime, including the language of the locals being banned. Franco’s allegiances to the capital and Real Madrid are heavily documented, as was the responsibility of the Basque terrorist group, ETA, in the fascist dictator’s downfall.
Phil Ball documents it eloquently in Morbo as he describes, not just the way ETA brought about change, but also the feeling if enmity towards the capital and all it stands for:
(Ball, 2003)
Franco suppressed the Basque language just as fervently as Catalan and, despite bluster in the annals of Catalan resistencia history, it was the Basques who really did him harm. ETA’s violence was a lurking threat from the Sixties onwards, which occasionally came spectacularly into the open. Two years before Franco’s death, the Basque separatists killed Admiral Carrero Blanco, eliminating the man who had been most likely to carry on the old dictator’s legacy and striking a death blow to the image of invulnerability the regime had enjoyed for so long.
There was so much dynamite packed into the bomb that blew up his car in a Madrid side-street in December 1973 that the vehicle actually took off and landed on the roof of one of the overlooking buildings, an event still celebrated in Basque nationalist circles by a song which begins ‘He flew, he flew…’ It was sung regularly when Real Madrid visited either Real Sociedad or Athletic Bilbao during the late Seventies, the period now officially termed the transicion – meaning the transition to democracy and the election of Felipe Gonzalez’s Socialist party. Most young Basques of that generation still know the song, and the tune is so pretty that some fathers may still sing their children to sleep to it – especially on the night before a game against the old enemy.
After Franco football continued to thrive. If anything, his demise saw football gain a broader and more enhanced appeal.
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