“There is no morality in politics. There is only convenience.”
Lenin
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The events of the last few days have brought to mind a couple of quotes by Winston Churchill about the Russian political world. “Two dogs fighting under a rug” and “A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”. If Churchill were alive today, he would perhaps apply the same phrases to the political world of FC Barcelona.
Just as the experts in Kremlinology try to decipher what is going on in the mind of Vladimir Putin, the experts in Barçalogía do not stop speculating about the intentions of Joan Laporta. Just as Putin lives in a state of alert, threatened by rivals from the old KGB, Laporta wages a permanent low-intensity war, under the rug, against the clan represented by Sandro Rosell and his intelligence chief Josep Maria Bartomeu.
The future is uncertain. The Russian economy suffers from state mismanagement and the fiasco of the war in Ukraine, raising doubts in a nation whose legendary resilience may have its limits. The calamitous economy of Barça, also a victim of management errors, added to the aftermath of the war against covid, calls into question the stability of the club. In both cases, suspicions of corruption float in the air.
Today the crisis is more intense in Russia, but it cannot be ruled out that Rosell will find the opportunity to lead a “march for justice” from his enclave in the Empordà towards the capital of Culé. Rosell has not killed anyone with a hammer, as far as is known, although there is always the possibility that his nemesis, Judge Carmen Lamela, will accuse him of it. But for the rest, Rosell does have things in common with Yevgueni Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group that has just mutinied against Putin. Both spent time in jail. Both have reason to resent an establishment whose members they despise.
The parallels extend to geopolitics. Putin has turned to the Turks to prevent the ruin of his country. Laporta has turned to a Turkish company to rebuild the rotten Camp Nou. On the battlefield, Russia has drones of Turkish origin; On the pitch, Barça has the brand new signing of Ilkay Gündogan, a German player with roots in Turkey.
Another parallel, this one more profound: Putin is under siege by NATO; the English Premier League is NATO that threatens Barça. Putin has had an ally against NATO and the West in general: China. Laporta has had as an ally against the Premier the Spanish Xi Jin Ping, the lifetime president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez. But neither of the two is an alliance of love; They are alliances of convenience. The fragility of the Madrid-Barça relationship has already been demonstrated. The Chinese today are beginning to question the viability of their relationship with the tottering Russian czar.
Both in Can Barça and in the Putin cartel there are more questions than answers. We can only speculate as to what the outcomes will be. One possibility is that Saudi Arabia will come to the rescue.
It is important that Putin has the option of a more or less dignified exit. In the event that he feels cornered, who knows what a guy who may be clinically insane and who has 6,000 nuclear missiles under his command might do. The Saudi sheikhs, who are doing so well today, who are so enjoying their growing hegemony in the sporting world, have more reason than most to prevent planet Earth from being reduced to ashes. With which they could offer Putin the pleasant possibility of living the rest of his days in exile in a palace in Riyadh, safe from Prigozhin’s hammer blows or polonium in his vodka.
The departure for Barça could follow a similar path. There are a couple of options. One, to leave “the Spanish State” and join the Saudi soccer league, an increasingly desirable destination for European players. Real Madrid could do the same, and thus, with one shot, Xi Jin Pérez’s dream of creating a Super League that would compete with the Premier could be fulfilled. Or, option two, sell the “more than a club” to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. Laporta might have to go into exile with Putin, of course, but neither of them would lack comfort and compensation.
