El Barça, Franco’s favourite team?

The claim that Franco sought to benefit Real Madrid at the expense of FC Barcelona is, along with with half-truths like the banning of the language and blatant lies like the banning of the sardana, a key element in Catalanista victimist mythology, and has been readily embraced by innocents from abroad. Here’s a Chris Nawrat piece for the British Channel 4, based on Jimmy Burns’ Barça: A People’s Passion:

Etcetera. Here, from the notably even-handed Anti-Barcelona.com, is part of the case for the defence:

Mini-charts of the absolute and relative (Real position - Barça position) league positions of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona during the Second Republic and the Franco dictatorship tend to support this interpretation. There’s a fairly clear correlation between periods of repression (40s, early 50s, early 70s) and Barcelona successes, while Real did better during periods of comparative openness (early 30s, late 50s, 60s).

I doubt, however, that evidence will ever emerge of any clear causal connection explaining football results in terms of government policy or Franco’s personal preferences. The closest we will probably get is in the Atlético’s string of post-war successes, when, as Atlético Aviación, it was sponsored by the armed forces. Allegedly. The same Santiago Bernabéu hagiography contains an anecdote from the period. Bernabéu escaped murder by the left and fought with the rebels during the war, but this was not, apparently, always enough:

There, some more lies to debunk.

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• Another lazy journalist
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• Quantitative analysis by language of Barcelona publications in British Library Integrated Catalogue
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• follies

Comments

1. Geoff sez:
   March 25th, 2005 at 11:35

   It makes perfect sense that Franco would favour Barça. Cataluña was a major industrial region and there’s no point in pissing people off unnecessarily. Croat Tito was so successful in Serb-dominated Yugoslavia for the same reason - if you’re good to troublesome minorities they’ll shut up.

2. chip sez:
   March 25th, 2005 at 15:47

   You are a dumbass. Franco and his fascist machine killed our president and forced half our team into exile. Franco did as much as he could to ruin our team, and its a testament to our drive and passion that we survived him. You are truly ignorant.

3. Trevor sez:
   March 25th, 2005 at 21:10

   Have you got any evidence that he tried? Can you explain why an all-powerful dictator should have failed? Why do the stats show Barça doing better during the worst repression?

4. jvl sez:
   March 30th, 2005 at 01:50

   I think you both, Geoff and Trevor, should read something, I don’t know exactly what but it should be quickly, before your brain helplessly dries out. First and last of all, if you need an evidence just look back on History: the president of the FC Barcelona WAS KILLED BY FASCISTS at the very begining of the war. That’s enough, isn’t it?
   The reason why who you call the ‘all-powerfull dictator’ did fail is basically because he was incredibly moron!
   Besides, we haven’t been struggling againts fascists to end up trying to convince of the true facts to a bunch of just landed Pommies

5. Trevor sez:
   March 30th, 2005 at 10:06

   FC Barcelona says that Suñol was killed because of his political activities–he was a prominent separatist. (I am told that the trainer of Espanyol was taken away from the ground and shot by anarchists at the beginning of the war, but again it had little or nothing to do with football: his sister was a nun.) If you’ve got any evidence to the contrary (or to support the ridiculous Franco-hated-Barça claim), I’m sure you’ll produce it.

6. xavi sez:
   June 4th, 2005 at 10:30

   i love barça that s all

7. Gio sez:
   March 29th, 2006 at 15:35

   … Sunyol was killed…fine I’ll admit that

   ..what about our president president Rafael Sánchez Guerra, a prominent Republican, was imprisoned and tortured his VP was arrested & Murderd, the Club treasurer was Prisoned & Murdered
   why do people forget what happened to Real Madrid as well
   so now tell me who suffered more???

   Barca keep their lies around the glob no one stands for Real Madrid..

   the team was forced to exile because
   1- there was a Civil war so they ran for safety reasons nothing more
   2- the liga was supended for 4 bloody years
   so it made no affect what so ever on Barca.

8. Trevor sez:
   March 29th, 2006 at 18:54

   It seems fairly obvious that Real suffered at least as much as Barça, but is there another team out there that thinks it did even worse?

9. DonDon sez:
   September 28th, 2006 at 19:15

   Wikipedia says about Di Stefano:

   On 1953, Di Stéfano signed a deal with FC Barcelona and the FIFA authorized the transfer from River Plate, the club that still had his rights, but the Spanish Federation did not. On May 13, 1953, he arrived to Spain to sign his contract with Barcelona but, during the troubles with the Federation, Real Madrid’s president Santiago Bernabéu convinced him to sign for them. Additionally, Real Madrid had negotiated with Millonarios.

   On September 15, the Spanish Federation made public its decision to allow Di Stéfano four seasons in Spain, two in each team, to be played alternately. Barcelona protested and finally renounced on October 23. The reasons of this decision are different on each side. While the Real Madrid has always maintained it was a voluntary decision of Barcelona, their rivals denounced pressure from the Spanish dictatorial government. This incident exacerbated the traditional enmity between the two clubs. Di Stéfano finally debuted with Madrid on September 23.

10. DonDon sez:
    September 28th, 2006 at 19:17

    No one knows who killed Sunyol. He went with some other guys to the Madrid front to do some war tourism while carrying a large sum of money. They were all found dead and the money was gone, so it could have equally been Republican gangsters in the know.

11. zvezdan milojevic sez:
    January 24th, 2007 at 20:34

    Dear friends,
    Dictator Franco in my modest opinion was fun of Real Madrid. I am sorry that I cannot read anything about Barcelaona s best team, of 1960s. They lost final match vs Benfica, but no one can forget fantastic players such as Cocsis, Csibor, Evaristo, Cubala, although Laci did not play in Zurich.

12. Bruno sez:
    October 21st, 2007 at 00:51

    “…half-truths like the banning of the language …”
    I married a Catalan woman. We had to notorize her birth certificate to marry. Her birth certificate was in Castellano and later, Catalan. Why? Because of the evil dictatorship of Franco. Trevor, thanks for the provocation, but you make things sound like they didn’t happen. You are very wrong, and need to talk to more Catalan and merengue fans to who lived through the cruel dictator’s reign.

13. ALAN PORTER sez:
    December 11th, 2007 at 13:55

    WHAT A COMPLETE MORAN YOU MUST BE. AN INCREDIBLY UNEDUCATED ACCOUNT OF A VERY TRAUMATIC TIME.

14. boynamedsue sez:
    December 11th, 2007 at 14:07

    Indeed.

    I believe he’s one of the County Antrim Morans.

15. Barça gagnera ce soir contre le Real machin . « Agharass, les délires de mes écrits. sez:
    December 23rd, 2007 at 01:30

    [...] va leurs creuser onze tombes. J’ai la certitude que le Fc Barcelona gagnera son match contre les lèches bottes du Général Franco. Dans l’engagement et le combat on est des vrais guerriers honnêtes et c’est pour cette raison [...]

16. Barça gagnera ce soir contre le Real machin . sez:
    March 5th, 2008 at 14:11

    [...] va leurs creuser onze tombes. J’ai la certitude que le Fc Barcelona gagnera son match contre les lèches bottes du Général Franco. Dans l’engagement et le combat on est des vrais guerriers honnêtes et c’est pour cette raison [...]

17. boynamedsue sez:
    May 19th, 2008 at 01:32

    Fuck me.

    It’s Nostradamus.

18. Peter sez:
    May 27th, 2008 at 18:57

    “On 1953, Di Stéfano signed a deal with FC Barcelona and the FIFA authorized the transfer from River Plate, the club that still had his rights, but the Spanish Federation did not. On May 13, 1953, he arrived to Spain to sign his contract with Barcelona but, during the troubles with the Federation, Real Madrid’s president Santiago Bernabéu convinced him to sign for them. Additionally, Real Madrid had negotiated with Millonarios.”

    So when the FC Barcelona webpage itself lies about what it really happened what can we expect from them?

    River Plate DID NOT hold Di Stefano’s rights in 1953. It was Millonarios de Bogotá who held them, at least until the beggining of 1955. As Barcelona had agreed a deal with River Plate and Real Madrid had done the same with Millonarios we could be said that both clubs shared Di Stefano’s rights. Both Barcelona and Real Madrid accepted the same man who had helped Barcelona in their purchase of Kubala some years before than that, as an intermediary to solutionate the problem. So as a salomonic choice the player would play two seasons in Real Madrid and the other two at Barcelona. Marti Carreto had to resign because of the numeorus critics from both staff of directives and fans and Barcelona refused to share the player, so Real Madrid had to pay Millonarios, River Plate and Barcelona to finally get the player.

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