I don't know whether this falls under news or sport, but it certainly falls under the law of unintended consequences.
If Catalonia does manage to achieve independence from Spain, then will Barcelona be permitted to continue playing in La Liga? It would be entirely down to the Spanish FA, and given that they have no obligation to allow them to remain then why should they let a club from a foreign country come in and hoover up their trophies? So Barca would in all effect become a team in their own national league of one, with no competitive football from one week to the next; I can't see crowd levels staying the way that they are on that basis, and are their stars going to stick around once the money generated by the crowds starts to dry up?
So yes, they get their nation state, but their biggest export and arguably their best-known asset devalue to the point of being worthless. Be careful what you wish for - it might just come true...
^ The Barcelona in La Liga issue has already been discussed in the Football Banter thread.
I think that there's more to the vote than just football. Lots of lives could be lost if this goes wrong.
Apologies - not been here that long and did do a search but didn't spot anything obvious like a thread about it so I assume that it must be buried in another discussion somewhere?
The topic of the thread is correct. It's just not all about football
There's lots of questions that want answering. La Liga is one of them
How will the Spainish government react?
What will the EU do if Spain send in the troups?
How will Catolonian independance affect the British expat's over there?
Viva Catalonia!
I like the way Spain have sacked the Catalan leaders and set up new elections, in the presumption that the Catalans won't just go "well, we'll re-elect the people we were quite happy with who want independence, muchas gracias"
I've always taken the view that if the people want independence then let them have a vote and then abide by it (not have another vote as soon as possible if you didn't get independence)
The problem with the Catalan vote was that it wasn't legally sanctioned and when they went ahead anyway the Spanish Govt got heavy handed. It's certainly the case though that having been told it was an illegal vote and wouldn't be allowed to stand that many Catalans who didn't want independence didn't bother to vote.
This won't go away without negotiation and I think that will have to include a legally approved vote with all Catalans encouraged to vote. The options need to be clear including I suspect greater powers of devolved government.
(29-10-2017 09:32 )Chunter Wrote: [ -> ]If Catalonia does manage to achieve independence from Spain, then will Barcelona be permitted to continue playing in La Liga? It would be entirely down to the Spanish FA, and given that they have no obligation to allow them to remain then why should they let a club from a foreign country come in and hoover up their trophies?
Because la Liga would be a lot poorer without Barcelona and their TV rights would be worth less, so there would be good reasons for allowing Barcelona to remain. There are several leagues in the world with 'foreign' clubs.
If La Liga didn't keep Barcelona, I'm sure France would have them considering they already allow Monaco to play in the French league. It would be a big shot in the arm for French football.
In that event Barcelona would have plenty of local games, as Monaco, Nice, Montpellier, Toulose and Marseille are all fairly close. Others such as Saint Etienne, Lyon and Bordeaux are no further away than Madrid is.
(29-10-2017 16:37 )William H Bonney Wrote: [ -> ] (29-10-2017 09:32 )Chunter Wrote: [ -> ]If Catalonia does manage to achieve independence from Spain, then will Barcelona be permitted to continue playing in La Liga? It would be entirely down to the Spanish FA, and given that they have no obligation to allow them to remain then why should they let a club from a foreign country come in and hoover up their trophies?
Because la Liga would be a lot poorer without Barcelona and their TV rights would be worth less, so there would be good reasons for allowing Barcelona to remain. There are several leagues in the world with 'foreign' clubs.
If La Liga didn't keep Barcelona, I'm sure France would have them considering they already allow Monaco to play in the French league. It would be a big shot in the arm for French football.
In that event Barcelona would have plenty of local games, as Monaco, Nice, Montpellier, Toulose and Marseille are all fairly close. Others such as Saint Etienne, Lyon and Bordeaux are no further away than Madrid is.
It would be hypocrisy for Barça to play in any other league. They are so closely associated with the independence movement it would be a huge slap in the face for them to say they wanted no part in a Catalan league.
Not convinced another league would want them either. Take France for example. There's no love lost between Barça and PSG and other clubs aren't going to vote in another super power which will make it less likely that Marseille, Monaco etc can get in the Champions League.
Interesting times, no doubt.
