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]