Catalonia are voting on Independence Sunday, and the president of La Liga has said Barcelona will face expulsion from La Liga if the independence vote goes through. Could get interesting. https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/09/0...lsion-if-catalunya-independence-voted-through It is possible they could seek joining another league, including the premier league, according to the "sports minister" of Catalonia, whatever that title means http://www.eurosport.com/football/b...claims-sports-minister_sto6350337/story.shtml “In the case of independence, Catalan teams in La Liga – Barcelona, Espanyol and Girona – will have to decide where they want to play: in the Spanish league or a neighbouring country: Italy, France or the Premier League,” said Catalonia's minster of sport Gerard Figueras. “Now in Spain there are teams from other countries who play in national leagues: clubs from Andorra in football and basketball. Monaco play in France, in England Welsh clubs. I don't think that UEFA has anything against seeing another club play in a different league from their country.”
I think Spanish government is trying to claim it is illegal, but the local governments are still planning on having it. I am not following it closely, but it seems like whether the election is legal is a different question than if it is happening.
The govt is apparently stealing ballots so that people’s can’t vote. Pretty ugly. https://mobile.nytimes.com/redirect...ferendum.html?referer=https://www.google.com/
Should have just let them vote. Not so sure it would have even passed, plus you can just nullify that the referendum afterwards and say the vote was illegal. Instead, the Spanish government is doing their best to piss people off and further a rallying cry.
I don't think anything is going to come of it even if it does pass. Spain can't afford to lose Catalunya. On top of that, they can't allow it to establish precedence for Basque Country to follow suit. Also, I think the liga threat is an empty one.
would be great to see Barca in the PL and having to play more than 4-6 important league matches per year.
Very true. It would be huge for French football and very bad for Spanish. It basically swaps Ligue 1 and La Liga as far as league status. It would also make me wonder how they would handle international play? A Catalan national team I suppose.
Spain's lucky it got the golden age of Catalans. Eight years ago they were just missing forwards or else they would have been pretty formidable at the world level. Now there's not much top-end talent available. Then again, maybe a true national team could help some masia players take the next step.
Yeah I saw relatively recent polling (like maybe a couple months ago) had Catalan support for independence in the high 30s, but since the vote is illegal, pro-independence voters have been energized and anti-independence voters are going to stay home such that a poll of likely voters had independence winning by 40+ points. Neither Rajoy nor Puigdemont seem particularly capable of sitting across a table from each other and hammering out a deal.
The pro independence movement is mostly a youth thing (millennial and even gen x age). You read articles talking about how it can't be discussed at dinner tables, and that's kids losing their shit with their parents. Spain is really fucking everything up with their response to this, though. It baffles me that they think this is the correct response. Decades of oppression under Franco, which is obviously now gone, and the response is to quash everything with a sledge hammer? All of it plays directly into separatist hands. But yeah, it's only going to fester until both sides can come together and figure things out.
Spain has really shit the bed on this. How embarrassing. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/541656/
God forbid getting emotional over being forced to play or drop points, in front of nobody, while police are beating the shit out of your fellow people.
Lol. Check out these sad sacks disrespecting one of the OG Catalans that gift wrapped Spain their first ever World Cup. There were fucking 6 Catalans and a Basque in the XI http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...referendum-albania-fc-barcelona-a7979596.html
Catalonia voted for independence today, Spain doesn't look like they are going to accept it and will force direct rule on the area. Things are going to get interesting.