The decision on who will launch the Sanfermines chupinazo has already been made. The mayor of Pamplona, ​​Enrique Maya, stated this Monday that Club Atlético Osasuna will be in charge of lighting the festive fuse on July 6. The outgoing first mayor, who will leave office this Saturday, alludes to the fact that Osasuna is “much more than a football club”: “It is a management model, it is a youth academy model, of women’s football and it has a team of people with disability…”.
The mayor has released this news in an interview with Onda Cero. “We reached the final of the Copa del Rey, it seemed that if we won it, there was no doubt that Osasuna was going to throw it away, then he didn’t win it and why wouldn’t he throw it away even if he hadn’t won it and yesterday I saw the game with my father at home and said the one we’re going to mess with; if we qualify we’ll throw the fixed shot. When you see the atmosphere, the people, you think that Osasuna has to throw the shot, he deserves it”.
In addition, he has indicated that 2020, the first year of the pandemic, was the centenary of the club and “that year it was not even possible to throw the shot.” “It’s a sum of things, I think they deserve it and they have to throw it away. You have a magnificent season, how is the club, Promises, the quarry, the women’s league, for people with disabilities, that we also have a team… It is a very well organized club, it is doing many things well, and the year of the centenary is added, which could not be celebrated either due to the pandemic”, he exposed.
The mayor explained that he had previously called the president of Osasuna, Luis Sabalza, who told him that it seemed good to him: “He is delighted with life and they will decide who throws it away. My personal opinion is that the highest representative would at least be understandable, but I don’t want to get where they don’t call me”.
Maya has recognized that “there will be people who will find it wrong and will say that we are always with football and that has its logic”. “And if there is one thing I have known in my years of politics, it is hundreds of associations that do very good things and do not have that recognition, there are so many that deserve it…”, she has stated.
Quickly, the decision has not caused division among the municipal groups because of the substance, although it did because of the form, as happened last year. Not surprisingly, the outgoing mayor Enrique Maya, from Navarra Suma (UPN, PP and Ciudadanos), has broken this legislature with the popular voting formula established by his predecessor in the mayor’s office, Joseba Asiron, from EH Bildu.
That formula had significant adherence and a very high level of participation in the voting; However, Maya has opted for candidates that are difficult to dispute: last year it was the exporter Juan Carlos Unzué, a benchmark for his work to make ALS patients visible, and this year for Osasuna, who has played in the Copa del Rey final. after 18 years and has qualified for European competition 16 years later (he will play the Conference League).
The decision on who launches the Sanfermines chupinazo, a milestone in the city, is a competence of the Mayor’s Office, which can delegate it to a popular vote or exercise it directly. Now, it remains to be seen if the new mayor or mayoress of the city, who will be appointed on Saturday, bets on the same formula as Maya or decides to go back to voting. At the moment, it is not even clear who will hold the position after the complicated political map that the elections have left.