Barcelona vs Real Madrid: How El Clasico was cancelled – and why it didn’t need to be

The decision to delay the fixture has only served to highlight Spain’s unique and often troubled mix between sport and politics

This weekend’s La Liga Clasico was postponed for political reasons by football people, who are now suffering the financial implications of their unnecessary decision.

The immediate motive for postponing Spanish football’s biggest fixture was the serious street protests and clashes with police which began in Barcelona last week, after Spain’s Supreme Court jailed nine Catalan separatist leaders for their role in a failed 2017 independence referendum.

Madrid’s visit on Saturday was to have been the first game played at Barcelona’s Camp Nou since the court verdict, which has also brought millions of peaceful protesters onto the streets of the Catalan capital and other cities, with another huge demonstration planned for the day of the game.

However, it was not immediately obvious to many in Barcelona that Clasico could not go ahead as scheduled. “I want for normal life to continue in the city, that events like football fixtures take place as expected,” city mayor Ada Colau said last week.

Barca coach Ernesto Valverde took a similar line. “We want to play the Clasico with our fans on the 26th,” Valverde said. “I see this as an opportunity for many people from here, for our fans, to show that it can be played perfectly in a natural way.” Madrid counterpart Zinedine Zidane said that “nobody liked violence”, but that his team were ready to play whenever asked, and “if that is on the 26th, then it is the 26th.”

The Spanish government also publicly saw no reason why the game needed to be put back for security reasons. “We have the means necessary to guarantee the Clasico can be played on any date,” Spain’s interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told Catalan radio station RAC 1 last Friday. “The government has not asked for it to be postponed.”

But by that stage the process of moving the game had already gathered unstoppable force – with the football authorities, rather than political or social leaders, as the primary drivers.

La Liga president Javier Tebas was the first to cite “exceptional circumstances beyond our control” as a reason not to play it this Saturday. Tebas initially suggested reversing this season’s Clasicos, and playing at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu instead this weekend, with the return fixture next March at the Camp Nou. The Royal Spanish Football Federation [RFEF] quickly said the sequence of fixtures could not be changed, however, they accepted that the game could not be played as scheduled.

Clearly neither Madrid-based LaLiga, nor the RFEF, wanted Spain’s showpiece game to be dominated by the current political situation in Catalonia. Specifically, there was a fear that the [claimed] global TV audience of 500 million would be swayed by watching a stadium filled with red and yellow Catalan senyera flags chanting ‘independencia’. The authorities knew it would be embarrassing and disruptive for the teams and their supporters to move the game. But for conservative Spanish nationalists, the possible propaganda victory for the ‘other side’ was even worse.

Barca’s club statutes mandate “loyalty to Catalonia”, and as an institution it has generally publicly supported the Catalan people’s right to self-determination. As soon as the nine politicians were jailed last week, the club released a strongly worded statement saying that “prison is not the solution” to the political crisis while also making a reasonable sounding call for “all political leaders to lead a process of dialogue and negotiation to resolve this conflict.”

Influential blaugrana figures Pep Guardiola and Xavi Hernandez more severely criticised the court decision and Madrid government generally, which raised hackles among Spanish nationalists, perhaps including those high in the footballing hierarchy. The way the issue became framed – especially by some right-wing politicians and prominent conservative media figures – was that going ahead with the game this weekend would have been a ‘defeat’ to Pep and Xavi.

Pro-Catalan independence banners are raised during El Clasico (Getty)

However, the idea that everybody at Barca is an ‘independentista’ and therefore ‘anti-Spanish’ is just plain wrong. There is a wide range of opinion among players, directors and supporters, including those born in Catalonia, Spain and elsewhere. Even Gerard Pique – the most high profile target of anger from nationalist Spaniards – has always been careful to give a nuanced view of the situation. Barca’s board also have to balance the different views within their fanbase and commercial partners.

The situation is not dissimilar to when Barca played Las Palmas behind closed doors at the Camp Nou on 1st October 2017 – the day of the proposed referendum on Catalan independence, which led directly to last week’s jailing of some of the organisers. However, the Clasico is different, and on Friday the blaugrana board accepted that it could not be played this week, and themselves suggested 18th December instead. In an uncommon show of solidarity with their rivals, Madrid also agreed.

That seemed to be that – with the RFEF’s Competition Committee expected to rubber-stamp the new date at a meeting on Monday in Madrid. But La Liga objected to playing their highest profile fixture on a midweek evening close to Christmas, as that would hurt the intention to use the game to promote Spanish football in the Far East.

“Spanish football loses value, in every sense, not just financial, but of presence in Asia,” Tebas told ABC over the weekend. “All the TV operators know it. The agreement signed was for the first Clasico of the season to be orientated towards the Asian market. That was why it was played on a Saturday at 1pm [local time]. If it is played on Wednesday night in Spain, Asia is asleep.”

Another irony of the situation is that the league’s main broadcast partner is Catalan company Mediapro, whose Barcelona-born boss Jaume Raures is a close business associate of Tebas despite their very different political views.

La Liga’s presentation to the Competition Committee, on which sit three supposedly independent legal experts, pointed out that there are Copa del Rey games already scheduled for 18th December, and RFEF rules forbid two competitions being played on the same date. FIFA’s Club World Cup semi-final involving Liverpool is also being played in Qatar that Wednesday, a further issue for TV audiences and the all important global commercial partners.

Luis Suarez and Sergio Ramos clash during Spain’s biggest fixture (Getty)

La Liga’s preferred date is Saturday 7th December, which would mean rescheduling games originally set for that weekend when Madrid and Barca are due to play Espanyol and Mallorca. Wednesday 4th December could emerge as a ‘compromise’ date, although that would not be ideal for the Asian market either. The committee is due to meet again on Tuesday evening, but a final decision may be pushed further back.

Meanwhile, the Clasico is not the only big Spanish game currently up in the air. Recent days also saw La Liga propose that early December’s Villarreal versus Atletico Madrid fixture be played in Miami. That means another battle with other football authorities inside and outside Spain, which Tebas’ side eventually lost when trying to move Barcelona against Girona to Florida last season.

And the venue for this season’s Spanish Supercopa, due to be contested by four teams next January, is also yet to be decided as RFEF president Luis Rubiales’ initial choice of Saudi Arabia as the venue ran into problems.

The Clasico overshadows all of these, and its rescheduling has just drawn attention to Spain’s unique mix of football and politics.

“This change of day and hour is going to hurt all of Spanish football,” Tebas said over the weekend.

The shame is that moving the game was not really necessary at all.