There are several reasons to hope that Girona will win La Liga this year. The romanticism of the giant slayer; the grace that a club whose old stadium has a capacity of 14,000 beats the one that will soon inaugurate the hypermodern new Bernabéu; the irony that the team from the most pro-independence city in Catalonia conquers Spain.
And this brings me to another reason, not so obvious but more important, because a significant sector of the population wants to see Girona crowned champion. I am referring to the political issue that has generated so much confusion in our lands over the last decade or more.
The victory of Girona could precipitate a strong impulse in favor of the independent cause. He could finally convince the majority of Catalans to demand separation from the “Spanish State”, a matter of utmost importance in the event that “the traitor” Pedro Sánchez ends up granting a referendum in Catalonia.
I explain myself.
It has been surprising (or have I missed something?) that those who oppose Catalan independence have not insisted more on the strongest argument they have: if Catalonia separates from Spain, goodbye to the participation of the clubs Catalans in the Spanish League. Goodbye to the super classic. Impossible for more than half of Catalans to vote for this calamity.
Salvation would come through Florentino Pérez’s Superliga, a project that all pro-independence supporters should fervently support. Particularly if Girona wins the League. In this case, the small club from the north of Catalonia should join the alleged exclusive club of European football powers, of course together with Barça, whose president has acted in this (for now) quixotic cause as a loyal squire of the president of Real Madrid.
Then, with Barça and Girona in the transnational Superliga, there would no longer be any social pressure for the two currently biggest clubs in Catalonia, whose fans make up much more than half of the nation’s inhabitants, to continue competing against Alabès, Almeria or Las Palmas. Their usual rivals would be Liverpool, Bayern Munich and Juventus. And Real Madrid: saved the super classic!
Girona, meanwhile, would have money to build a stadium three times bigger than the current one and the city would experience a boom thanks to the obligation to expand the hotel and alcohol offer to meet the needs of English and German hooligans .
Nonsense? Well, brace yourself, another one is coming. Another thing that surprises is the rejection of the Spanish right to the secession of Catalonia. It doesn’t make any sense. Rationally, I say. It was the Catalan socialist vote that prevented a victory for the Popular Party in the general elections held in July. It is clear that with Catalonia outside of Spain the right would maintain control of the central government for more years than Franco himself.
That’s why, although I’m not usually a big fan of conspiracy theories, I wonder if the Superliga is a covert project of the right to achieve the unconfessable wish that Catalonia leave Spain so they can celebrate elections with results as predictable as those of Russia or Rwanda.
It would be a delicate move, of course. Given the emotional weight that the imperative to maintain Spanish territorial integrity, the protection of the Constitution and such has on the souls and hearts of the right, it would be necessary to maintain the rhetorical fiction that sooner dead than free Catalonia. At the same time, the ground would have to be prepared, with enormous discretion and subtlety, so that Sánchez would fall into the trap of offering the referendum that most Catalans long for.
The key is for Girona to win the Spanish championship this season and establish the arguments, endorsed by Florentino Pérez (if I am not mistaken in my theory), for them to join the Superliga together with Barça. In this case, with the certainty that two important Catalan football clubs would continue to compete in perpetuity at the highest level, the main obstacle to a majority vote in favor of Catalan independence would disappear and the Madrid right would once again assume total control of Spain, like in the old days.
