Intellectual Spanish paper sees dark forces behind the three-game closure of the Vicente Calderon stadium
The Spoiler is used to reading stories in the Spanish sporting dailies that compensate for a lack of substance with a hefty dose of local indignation, but the reaction of even the serious Spanish papers to UEFA’s closure of Atletico Madrid’s ground is one of quite hilarious paranoid hysteria.
Instead of seeing the punishment as a response to violence and racism, the very solemn national daily El Pais has chosen to interpret the sentence as firm evidence of jealous French and English football bureaucrats ganging up out of spite for Spain’s sporting excellence.
This is the first paragraph of an editorial that appeared this morning, under the headline “The anglo-french axis and the half-hearted Spanish”
“Just one day after England - quite out of the blue - vetoed playing at the Bernabeu on grounds of racism, UEFA, led by Michel Platini, a Frenchman, and Gordon Taylor (David Taylor actually - Gordon Taylor runs the PFA), a Scot, upheld the complaint made by a French club against Atletico de Madrid - a side representative of the current dominance of Spanish sport that has been under suspicion for a while now: from Alonso to Nadal via Contador and others. This is not to suggest fanciful conspiracies or appeal to blind patriotism, but that the English should look in the rear-view mirror the day before UEFA cracks the whip seems like too much of a coincidence. Especially, given the severity of the punishment, and with which UEFA has deemed itself, quite without precedent, the rightful judge of the behaviour of a national police force. Extraordinary.”
Perhaps a cup of tea and a long sit down might help, my dears.
4 responses so far
1 Upminster Iron // Oct 15, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Brilliant, I love the way the Spanish journalist says he’s not pedalling conspiracy theories before going ahead and doing it anyway! Not to mention the idea that Athletico Madrid are an example of Spain’s dominance.
Some Spanish journalists talk so much nonsense and apply so little logic that I’m surprised Sheffield United didn’t call on them as witnesses at our tribunal!
2 abel // Oct 15, 2008 at 9:48 pm
I agree, the spanish sports newspaper are hilarious… but we don’t have a much better image about the english media.
Anyway, the Platini issue is older than me… that guy really hate us.
3 Quini // Oct 16, 2008 at 10:01 pm
The supposed racist chants Olympique claims were “kun, kun, kun” and that my friends is the nickname of an Atlético player SERGIO “Kun” AGUERO. And the incidents were provocked by the Olympique radicals when the police retired a banner with symbols that are included in the UEFA catalogue of symbols not allowed and that the police must retire and the police just did it. After that, Olympique radicals went crazy and started throwing the chairs to the police and stewards. So it’s true that the French and English press is only giving one side of the story.
4 Maria // Nov 6, 2008 at 8:57 am
The last e-mail is the only one who knows what’s he’s talking about.
That’s the unbelievable but the true story. It was the Olympique radicals fault, they went crazy against the spanish police. And how can UEFA decide that the spanish police didn’t know how to act?!!! And even in that case that’s not Atletico de Madrid’s fault. Platini is french and listen to the french untrue stories. Please if you don’t believe it, have a look at the events during the match. The Olympique radicals were the only ones using Violence!!!!