A Catalan Perspective

Credits:  jmsera Flickriver

Josep Cru is a Catalan lecturer at Newcastle University. He was kind enough to answer some of my questions about the role FC Barcelona plays in Catalonia.

In what ways do you think FCB represents Catalan identity? Do you have any specific examples of this?

Teaching languages and Catalan here, one the things that all of my students find striking when they go to Barcelona and go to the stadium, is that all the announcements are in Catalan. That is very symbolic of the power of the language, announcing in Catalan to 100,000 people. I think that it’s a very good way of letting people know that we have a different language, a different culture, a different identity.

Do you think that FCB is a vehicle for expressing Catalanism?

Yes definitely.  I think that it has become a vehicle for expressing Catalan identity, but because of globalisation, it is becoming an international team like Manchester United who have fans all over the world. You can have a Japanese guy who is a Man U fan and you can have the same thing with FC Barcelona. But the club is definitely rooted in Catalan identity, for historical reasons with the memory of being a kind of haven for expressing Catalan identity and for being used as a political weapon in Franco’s time. So I think it is still very much rooted in Catalonia but at the same time there is this opening to globalisation and becoming a kind of international football club.

Do you think the globalisation of the club affects how it represents Catalan identity?

Catalans really want to let other people know about our culture and language. We’re basically very proud of our culture and language. And many people know about Barcelona but not Catalonia as a country or as a nation, if you want to use that politically loaded notion! Like here, you have the Scottish and Welsh nations and there’s no problem with that, but using the word nation within Spain is more problematic because officially there is only one nation. So one of the main problems it that many people know now about Barcelona being a Catalan team but we need to go further and let people know about the country, not just the city. It’s because after the Olympics, Barcelona became a world city. But one of the main challenges for Catalan people now and in the coming years, is to do what we did with Barcelona and do the same with Catalonia.

Do you think that the football club can help with that?

Yes it can help but it is also grabbing all the attention. It’s like a double edged sword in a way. In way it’s the best way to let the world know about Catalonia. If you talk to Catalan people, you’ll see that there is Barcelona and then the rest. The centrality of Barcelona is good, you have the capital of a nation, but on the other hand what happens to other cities and others parts of Catalonia is that they become kind of blurred, obscured or non-existent because Barcelona stands out all the time. Catalonia is usually conflated with Barcelona and many Catalan people who are not from Barcelona complain about that. What about the rest of us? Catalonia is more than just FC Barcelona.

Do you think that the club has a role to play in Catalan politics? Do you think that it can be involved in politics as well as being a sporting club?

It has been in the past and it will be in the future. It’s too powerful and politics and sports are interconnected, there are links. The former president of FC Barcelona Laporta is now an MP in the Catalan parliament. So there are connections, definitely. It’s a very powerful weapon and not to use it for political reasons would be naïve. To think sport is just sport … it’s not like that. At least not in Spain it isn’t.

Do you think it’s right for the club and sometimes the players, the managers or the president to get involved in politics?

I don’t know if it’s right or wrong. It’s difficult to say. What I want to highlight is that it is almost inevitable. But football players in Barcelona always try to shut their mouths and not say anything about Catalonia because they play for the Spanish national team. Not many of them, but some of them who are more Catalanist or engaged in Catalan politics, they always have to be very careful about what they say because then the mass media in Madrid can really destroy them. Oleguer Presas, who was an FC Barcelona player about ten years ago, was one of the few who said he would not play for the Spanish national team, for political reasons. He did not feel Spanish at all. It was in all the newspapers, like a scandal. He actually moved to Holland and to Ajax because in Spain it was very difficult for him. But many of the football players really try to keep a low profile and not say anything. When they are asked by journalists they always say, “No we just play, we are sportsmen, we don’t want to go into politics”, because they know that anything they say can be taken and thrown against them. It’s highly politicised.  It’s a question of clashes of identity.

FC Barcelona seems to be firmly linked with promoting Catalan culture, Catalan language and Catalan identity, but also seems to have quite firmly distanced itself from the independence movement. Do you think that, as with the players, it’s about not wanting to give out the wrong message?

Yes, but I think that it’s becoming more and more prominent, the independence issue. Maybe ten years ago very few people would really think of an independent Catalonia saying that’s almost impossible, we are more or less fine and happy with government in Madrid, at the end of the day we’ll reach an agreement. But now people’s opinions are very split.

Do you think the club will have to get involved?

Yes, I think they will in the end, probably. If things are progressing in this direction with the Partido Popular in Madrid … We’ll see! But they will have to take sides in a way.

When I was living in Barcelona during the Euros, I was pleasantly surprised that there was a lot of support for la Roja. Do you think that the support for the Spanish national team has changed over the years since their success?

Yes. It is really complicated because many people who support FC Barcelona are also happy when the Spanish national team wins. But one of the main reasons is that many FC Barcelona players are playing for the Spanish national team. So there is this connection. But I think that if there were maybe only one or two players, it would be different. But the whole identity thing, being Catalan, sometimes isn’t so clear-cut, isn’t so exclusive. Many of my friends and myself for example, I grew up in Barcelona but my parents are from a different part of Spain and that is the case for about 70% of people living in Catalonia. It’s a place of immigration from different parts and there have always been players from everywhere too. So sometimes you have to think about identity in a more fluid way. Sometimes I can feel more Catalan and sometimes I can feel more Spanish. It’s a contextual thing, it’s not that clear-cut. There are people who can feel very Catalan, not Spanish at all. There are people who are very Catalan but also Spanish in a way. And then there are people who feel more Spanish than Catalan even though they were born and bred in Barcelona. There is this wide range of identities. So I’m not surprised when La Roja wins that there are many people who are very happy and cheering because it is a part of ourselves in a way as well.

Do you think that people, particularly the younger generations, are no longer ashamed or scared of being proud of Spain and the national team because it’s not associated with Franco or nationalism anymore?

Yes that’s right. I think that it’s linked particularly to what happened in the nineties. It was like an economic, social and cultural miracle. We had a World Exhibition in Seville, we had the Olympics in Barcelona and Spain became a modern and outgoing country. So there was a moment, in that decade particularly, when there was such a big change from two decades before when Spain was almost underdeveloped, there was a dictatorship, it was awful, an awful situation. And then just twenty years later there was this miracle of becoming this modern country, within the European Union, economically developed, and culturally interesting. People were really proud of being Spanish at that time when maybe twenty years previously there was still that idea of Spain not being a very nice country within Europe. The nineties was a key decade. It was fantastic.

Do you think that the success of the Spanish nation team is also a success for Catalonia?

It is definitely. It’s very connected to the way that football is understood in Catalonia and La Masia. There has been a real change and the way that FC Barcelona has been playing in the last decade, it has very much influenced the way in which la Roja plays. But one of the real questions is whether la Roja could have a Catalan coach. They have many FC Barcelona players but remember that the coach is Del Bosque. He used to play for Real Madrid; he’s very much connected to Madrid and to central Spain. I don’t know if the Spanish national team will ever have a Basque or a Catalan coach. Particularly a coach that feels very Catalan. Like Guardiola for example, I don’t know if he would even take the job in the first place! But also, what would Spanish people think of having a Catalan coach for the Spanish national team? I think that the socio-political situation now would not allow that, definitely.

What do you think about Catalan independence? Do you think it would be good thing or not?

I think it’s difficult in many ways because one of the main things is that people have links, connections and family and relatives in different places in Spain. It would really weird to go and visit my family in another country. But in the European context and now having the European Union which is getting more and more important, I think Catalonia could be a small State like Denmark. Many Catalans say that Denmark with 5 million people is a small country, very developed, very high-tech and very good education. Why couldn’t we be the Denmark of Southern Europe? But there are many challenges.

And one of the challenges is, if Catalonia did become independent, what would happen with the football? Would Barcelona play in La Liga? It’s not just political is it?

Exactly. It would be impossible to have a Catalan league like the Scottish league, it could be really boring. But there are also people who say that we need to think of a kind of European league with the top clubs. Again that’s very typical. Catalans looking towards Europe to leave Spain behind, thinking that the only way out is to think of Europe as our political framework instead of looking at the nation-state.

FC Barcelona: a political victim and protagonist

Credits: Stricikanegér Flickr

As I’ve said previously, FC Barcelona and politics have gone hand in hand in the past and continue to do so today. FC Barcelona fans have claimed throughout the history of the club, particularly during the dictatorships, that that club was a political victim. As the club had become a substitute political institution for the repressed Catalonia and a major catalyst for the growth of the collective Catalan identity, any political attack on the club was seen, and still is seen, as an attack on the Catalan nation.

In 1925, when the crowd at FC Barcelona’s previous home Les Courts booed the Spanish national anthem, the dictator Primo de Rivera closed the stadium for six months, effectively shutting down the only place left that Catalans could express their identity. Just over a decade later in 1936, the club’s president, Josep Suñol, was allegedly murdered by Franco’s men and according to Nili this “further cemented the club’s political association”.

FC Barcelona also fell foul of political bias on the field and in player transfers during Franco’s dictatorship. On June the 13^th 1943, FC Barcelona played Real Madrid in the second leg of the Copa del Generalísimo (the Spanish Cup) semi-final. Barça were the cup holders and had won the first leg 3-0. It is common knowledge that Spain’s Director of State Security went into the home dressing room and intimidated FC Barcelona players, ‘encouraging’ them to lose the match. Real Madrid went on to win the second leg 11-1. Throughout Catalonia, that game was widely interpreted as evidence of governmental influence and domination.

What is now known as the Di Stéfano affair also illustrates how Franco’s power and influence extended to football. In 1953, FC Barcelona signed the Argentine star Alfredo Di Stéfano and were licking their lips at the thought of the unstoppable duo of Di Stéfano and Kubala. However, in what the club describes as “A strange federative manoeuvre with Francoist backing”, it was stipulated that Di Stéfano should play alternate seasons with both Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. In the end FC Barcelona let the player go to Real Madrid and Di Stéfano and Kubala played against each other for many years. This affair was seen by many in Catalonia as yet another attack on the club and on Catalonia. Shobe adds that, “the incredible success of Real Madrid in the ensuing years would only add to the bitterness and resentment of many Catalans and further solidify Real Madrid’s reputation as the dictator’s team.”

The late 1960’s were a time of liberalisation in Catalonia thanks to Franco’s deteriorating health and his slipping control of the country. It was in 1968 that the famous motto “més que un club” was uttered for the first time during the inaugural president’s address by Narcís de Carreras. Although it only became commonly used from the 70’s onwards, it is evidence of the political and social role that the club and its president lauded for itself.

Despite this sense of increased freedom, the Guruceta case in 1970 was a stark reminder that the power still rested with the central government in Madrid. The incident took place in the return leg of the quarter-finals of la Copa del Generalísimo, in what is considered the most scandalous match in Spanish football. In the 60^th minute, the referee Guruceta Muro awarded a penalty to Real Madrid for a foul on Velázquez. The foul, however, happened clearly outside the box by over a metre. The FC Barcelona players threatened to leave the pitch and the irate supporters invaded the pitch where they were met with police brutality. FC Barcelona were fined 90 000 pesetas and were knocked out of the Cup. The Guruceta case became shorthand for the oppression and repression that both FC Barcelona and Catalonia suffered at the hands of Franco’s regime. But it was also in a sense a reawakening of FC Barcelona as an active force in political Catalanism. 

Early on in the 1970’s, before Franco’s death, FC Barcelona had already started to use its status to endorse Catalanism. In 1972 the club publically promoted a campaign advocating the use of Catalan in schools. A year later announcements at el Camp Nou started to be made in Catalan and the Catalan flag was flown again at the stadium. In 1974, a year before Franco died, the club reclaimed its Catalan name and FC Barcelona beat Real Madrid 5-0 with their hero Cruyff leading the way. Just before the dictator’s death in 1975, Catalan once again became the official language of the club. It has been said that during the final years of the dictatorship, FC Barcelona’s directors increasingly took Catalanista politics into their own hands and used the club to challenge the regime. Shobe claims that this “shows evidence of the inextricable connection between politics, sport and national identity in Catalonia.”

But what is the situation today? Does FC Barcelona still have role to play in Catalan politics? Can it still be influential? Some argue that nowadays the club has little or no role in Catalan politics as people have other alternatives now that all the Catalan social, political and economic institutions that were outlawed during the dictatorship are now thriving. However, the opposite can easily be argued.

The club is often seen to support initiatives which are aimed at promoting Catalan culture and by extension Catalonia. This inevitably falls into the political domain because of the centuries of repression and oppression. For Catalans, one of the major components of their identity is their language and as it was heavily repressed in the past, they are determined not to let it go again. FC Barcelona supports this view and endorses initiatives to keep Catalan in schools and to teach Catalan more generally. The club itself makes sure that their players are offered Catalan lessons and of course uses Catalan as its official language.

Although the club itself supports Catalonia and is involved in Catalan politics, it has distanced itself from the calls for independence. A reason for this is that this question goes beyond what the club feels that it can get involved in. It’s all very well supporting the promotion of Catalan culture and autonomy in terms of education, but independence is a whole different issue with a whole different set of challenges. The club also needs to be careful not to alienate fans. Although many FC Barcelona fans will and do support Catalan independence, I think that the club would do more damage in coming out in favour of independence than not taking sides at all.

The players also find themselves in difficult situations when it comes to Catalan politics. Even though many of them are Catalans through and through, the majority refuse to comment on political issues. By backing away from potential polemical situations, they know they are protecting themselves against media backlash. Most of the Spanish national team is made up of FC Barcelona players and they know that they would be torn apart if they criticised central Spain. It has, however been very interesting to see how Carles Puyol and Pep Guardiola are more prepared to be outspoken. Guardiola, a FC Barcelona legend as a player and a manager, was given the top honour in Catalonia by the Catalan parliament, la Medalla d’Honor, and was invited to speak to the parliament. 

Credits: convergenciaiunio Flickr

Although Puyol still plays for the national team, he knows that he only has a few matches left in him and he’s already won the Euros and the World Cup in 2008 and 2010 respectively. He doesn’t really have anything to lose now and anyway, I think it would take quite a lot to affect the respect that Spain has for him. This is why he can, via Twitter, publically criticise Jose Ignacio Wert, the minister for education, culture and sport, who has proposed to change current education legislation, which allows for Catalan to be taught in schools, to ensure that Castilian Spanish is taught in schools country-wide.

Credits: fcbarcelona4eva Flickr

The club president plays a major role in how politically involved the club is allowed to be and this has meant that over the years, the club has been more or less involved in Catalan politics. Josep Lluís Núñez was FC Barcelona’s president from 1978 until 2000 and arguably oversaw the club’s most successful period. Núñez treated the club as a business and felt that finances were more important than promoting Catalonia and Catalan culture. Some even claim that he was anti- més que un club. Laporta, club president from 2003 to 2010, on the other hand, promised to return the club to Catalonia and promoted FC Barcelona as Catalan institution. He wanted to reassert the social role of the club and this meant promoting the Catalan language, use of Catalan symbols and improving relationships with the city and regional governments. Laporta supported Catalan language rights and education such as Omnium Cultural (promoting official use and status of Catalan) and Free Catalonia (organisation that lobbies for Catalan language programmes in schools and funds Catalan teaching to immigrants). The club also started to use Catalan in every facet of operations including for player contracts.

FC Barcelona always has and still represents Catalan identity and Catalonia and as long as it has the national and international status that it has now, it will always be a tool for promoting the Catalan culture and nation. It can influence politics because it is so powerful and has such a following and because of being a global superbrand, it also brings the concerns of Catalonia to the international stage. 

El Camp Nou: A bastion of Catalan identity

Credits: Jonathan_Hawkins

I was warned that doing a project on something I have such a passion for would make me sick of it. I can safely say that I haven’t yet got sick of reading about football, talking about football or watching football. All the research I have done has only made me even more aware of how el Camp Nou is such a stage for the expression on Catalan identity. I’ve watched a lot of Barça games but I saw their last Champions League match against AC Milan through very different eyes and did spend most of the match watching the crowd and looking for symbols of Catalan identity instead of watching the play.

Academics have claimed in the past that a stadium of a football club plays an important role in facilitating collective identification and can create a sense of home or rootedness for the fans and players alike. El Camp Nou is no different from any other football club stadium in that respect. But when you look a little closer, you can see that el Camp Nou is so much more than a place that people go to watch football and feel a footballing connection to.

El Camp Nou is a real bastion of Catalan identity and has been since its opening in 1957. It has a history of being a vehicle for expressing Catalan identity and Catalan national sentiment, even when technically that was banned. During Franco’s dictatorship, all things Catalan were banned as Franco wanted to forge a single Spanish identity above all regional identities in Spain. This was extended to FC Barcelona and their stadium Les Corts and then later el Camp Nou. Catalan flags were banned, announcements in Catalan were banned, Spanish became the official language of the club, the board of directors were Franco sympathisers. Even the name of the club was changed from a Catalan to a Spanish one. What Franco couldn’t ban or change however, was how Catalans felt or with what they identified. He also couldn’t change the fact that Catalans saw every success of FC Barcelona as a success for Catalonia; especially when this success was over Real Madrid, the dictator’s team. He could stop them shouting “Viva Catalonia” but he couldn’t stop them shouting “Viva el Barça!” The building of the stadium itself is a clear example of the Catalans getting one over on Madrid. Real Madrid’s stadium, el Santiago Bernabéu, was the biggest stadium in Europe until el Camp Nou came along with its 93 053 crowd capacity in 1957. Every couple of weeks, it would be full of Catalans asserting their identity through their football club. In a way el Camp Nou became a surrogate for the expression of Catalan identity and Shobe argues that, “the Camp Nou’s grandiosity contributed to its status as a site of resistance during the dictatorship.”

El Camp Nou has remained a vehicle for expressing Catalan identity in the democratic era. Now that FC Barcelona is such a global brand, el Camp Nou is not only a stage for Catalanism nationally but also internationally. Here are a few of the displays of Catalan identity that I have highlighted from matches at el Camp Nou.

Flags: El Camp Nou is always full of Catalan flags and also Catalan independence flags.

Credits: Telegraph

Political message banners: The stadium is the perfect place to get a political protest message across to a huge number of people.

Credits: Help Catalonia 

Credits: Help Catalonia 

17:14  ¡Independencia!: 17 minutes and 14 seconds into a match, particularly those against Real Madrid but also at times of political tension, the Barça supporters shout “Independence”. This refers to September the 11^th 1714 when Catalonia was taken over by the Kingdom of Spain. It could be argued that Catalonia has been fighting for independence ever since.

The Mosaic: At the beginning of all matches at el Camp Nou, the crowd produces a mosaic of the Barça colours across the stadium. Against Real Madrid in October 2012, it was a mosaic of la Senyera (the Catalan flag) that was held up by nearly 100 000 people at el Camp Nou in the light of growing political tensions between Madrid and Catalonia.

Credits: ltotti69 Flickr

Kit: The FC Barcelona kit over the years has been a way of representing Catalonia arguably because they have no FIFA recognised national team of their own. This has been through having the flag on the shirt or on the captain’s armband.

Credits: Rober Videla Flickr

Credits: Victor Caivano [AP]

Catalans and La Roja

Credits: EFE via www.elcentrocampista.com

When I get asked who I support in international sporting tournaments people can be surprised, confused or even angered at my answer. I was born in England but have lived the best part of my life in France, which is where I call home. My parents were warned when they moved to France that their children would end up being more French than English and by 1998 at the age of eight, I was wearing a French football shirt, collecting player cards in cereal boxes and was shouting “Allez les Bleus” and singing “La Marseillaise” along with everyone else. Although it’s not always been plain sailing (2002 and 2010 come to mind …) I’ll always support France over England. But that isn’t to say that I want England to lose all their matches. I enjoy watching them play and watching them win. Just as long as it’s not against France!

Having grown up effectively with two nationalities and identities, I was interested at looking into the situation that Catalans can find themselves in with their sometimes conflicting Catalan and Spanish identities. Is it ok to support the Spanish national team, la Roja, as a Catalan?

To understand why this actually a valid question, we need to go back to the history books and look at the relationship between Catalonia and Spain. It could be argued that Catalonia has been fighting for recognition since September the 11^th 1714, when it was defeated by the Spanish monarchy and integrated into the Kingdom of Spain. This day is now celebrated as Catalonia’s National Day, a day which often sees protests against the Spanish government and calls for more Catalan autonomy or even independence from the centralised Spain of Madrid. As well as a 300 year struggle to retain a degree of autonomy and recognition, Catalonia has also endured two periods of dictatorship which are still in living memory; the first was that of Miguel Primo de Rivera between 1923 and 1930 and the second of Francisco Franco between 1936 and 1975. During both of these dictatorships, all fundamental aspects of Catalan identity and culture were repressed or eradicated with the goal being a Castilian united Spain. Primo de Rivera abolished the Catalan governing authority, suppressed Catalan political and cultural institutions, banned the Catalan flag, centralised education policy to Madrid and eliminated Catalan language rights. Similarly, Franco banned Catalan flags, the Catalan language, Catalan music and monuments and enforced strict rules on assembly. The author Llobera has even claims that there was a “systematic cultural genocide of the Catalan nation”.

These crack-downs on all things Catalan were extended to FC Barcelona; the Catalan flag was banned at matches and in stadiums and all announcements were made in Spanish. Primo de Rivera had all members registered with the police, intimidated players and made them perform a fascist salute at matches. Franco changed the club’s name, Futbol Club de Barcelona in Catalan, to the Spanish Barcelona Club de Fútbol, changed the club’s crest taking away the St George’s Cross (patron Saint of Catalonia) and changing the Catalan flag into the Spanish one and replaced the board of directors with his sympathisers. His attempts to eradicate every Catalan aspect of FC Barcelona in reality only re-enforced and strengthened the Catalan nationalism and identity. This is because FC Barcelona was the last legal vehicle (although restricted) to express their Catalan identity

According to Hunter Shobe, “Franco saw football as a possible means of placating and distracting dissenters – an opiate of the masses”. Franco believed that if people were being entertained by football, they would be less likely to revolt or be interested in politics. He used it as a tool for promoting Spanish nationalism and he heavily supported the development of the Spanish national football team. As well as encouraging national pride, he believed that football could improve the country’s image abroad. Although this largely failed with the national team due to their distinct lack of success, Real Madrid took on this role for Franco. For Catalans, Real Madrid was known as the dictator’s team and they have often lamented political bias against in terms of refereeing, intimidating FC Barcelona players and in player transfers.

The historical and political background as to why a Catalan may not want to support the Spanish national team speaks for itself. It would be understandable that people could be ashamed of being proud of a Spanish national team, especially those for who remember the dictatorship and nationalism. And although Spain is one country, it is made up of many separate ‘nations’ and identities; many Catalans believe they are Catalan before being Spanish. However, there is also the simple fact that the Spanish national team before 2008 had very little success in comparison with FC Barcelona.

Times are changing however, and in 2008 Barcelona surprised many people in their support for la Roja in the Euros. The streets were packed with people celebrating Spain’s victory, even in the famous Plaça Catalunya and on Las Ramblas. Unusually, the Spanish flag was also visible in the crowds and according to El Mundo, the highest television audiences in Catalonia at the time were when the Spanish national team was playing. This support continued through the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 Euros. I was happily surprised, when I was living in Barcelona during the 2012 Euros, at how many Spanish flags hung on people’s balconies alongside la Senyera (the Catalan flag). I got the impression that it was normal to support the Spanish national team in Barcelona.

The huge success of the Spanish national football team must be the biggest reason for Catalans supporting them. However, there are some underlying reasons too. I believe that one of those reasons is that there are now a few generations who have grown up in a democratic Spain and who don’t feel any shame in feeling proud of their nation. They are allowed to be proud of the successes of their country. For a lot of Catalans nowadays, young and old, football is no longer simply about politics, but about the success of and pride in their team. 

Another major factor has to be the number of FC Barcelona or Catalan born and bred players playing in the Spanish national team now. In the World Cup final of 2010, 7 of the 11 starting players on the pitch played for FC Barcelona. Catalans have their heroes such as Puyol, Piqué, Fabregas, and Xavi not only representing Spain but also, in their eyes, Catalonia. In the same way that in 1998 people hailed France’s World Cup victory as a victory for Algeria, it can also be said that the treble international success of Spain is also a victory for Catalonia. 

Credits: www.thisissport.com

To attempt to prove that there is an element of truth behind my ramblings, have a look at these videos in which real Catalans talk about their support for la Roja and the reaction of the city of Barcelona to Spain’s success.

Roja fever spreads among proud Catalans: 

Catalans put own identity over national pride: 

Why this blog?

This blog is all about FC Barcelona and the club’s relationship with Catalonia and Catalan identity. It is the main output of a project I have undertaken as part of my final year studies at Newcastle University studying Combined Honours in Spanish and German.

I hope that the content of this blog will be of interest to people who , like me, have a passion for football but that it will also be appreciated as a piece of academic work as, after all, it is being assessed for my degree. This project has enabled me to combine the academic skills that I have acquired during my four years at university and a topic that I am passionate about.

I lived in Barcelona for a few months in 2012 as part of my year abroad for my degree. The idea for my project started from there as I noticed how FC Barcelona was such a key part of the life of the city and the lives of people living there. What was also very obvious to me was that Barcelona is definitely Catalan before being Spanish and I was interested in finding out how FC Barcelona fits into that politically and socially. I was also lucky enough to be living in Barcelona during the last UEFA Euros which was, of course, won by Spain. Again, it was interesting for me to see how despite being in Catalonia (which technically has its own national football team), the support for the Spanish national team was unequivocal. This Catalan support for La Roja was another area I was interested in looking into and how this support has evolved over the years.

Although the project is not a dissertation per se, the amount of research and preparation behind all the projects undertaken by my peers and myself shows the academic value of our work. A sizable amount of reading and research has gone into my project but, I have to say, there are most definitely worse topics to be reading up on! The vast majority of people who I’ve spoken to about my project have been surprised (and some a little bit jealous!) that I have been able to spend hours reading about and researching something that I love. The majority of my research has been taken from academic journals, articles and books. However, given the nature of my project, I have read football blogs, trailed through official football websites and spent hours on youtube. I have also managed to justify it to myself that watching Barça’s matches also counts as valuable research!

I had been warned that the more you research a topic, the less you can enjoy it afterwards. I can safely say though, that after watching Barcelona’s last Champions league match against AC Milan, I’m not enjoying it any less!