Blunt Barça have misery compounded after Frankfurt humiliation

A flat evening for FC Barcelona ended in misery as Cádiz pulled off an old-fashioned smash-and-grab in the Camp Nou to lift themselves out of the La Liga relegation zone with a famous 0-1 victory.

The game was played against a strange backdrop setting a nervous tension in the team from the off. Monday was the first anniversary of the launch of the failed European Super League venture, and the morning began with the revelation from Spanish news outlet El Confidencial that Barça star Gerard Piqué was directly involved in bringing the Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia in a revamped four-team format. It was reported that the defender’s company makes €6 million per year from the four-year agreement – €24 million total. 

This game was also the first after Thursday night’s debacle against Eintracht Frankfurt, where up to 30,000 away fans took over the Camp Nou. The wounds from that 2-3 defeat that means the club will likely go without silverware this campaign are still raw for the blaugrana. From one defeat in 16, to now two reversals in a row, both in their own stadium. 

The singing section behind one of the Camp Nou goals which gives itself the responsibility for carrying the atmosphere through the 90 minutes of football decided to go on strike for Monday’s game, protesting against the way the club managed ticket sales for the Europa League quarter-final clash which turned out to be one of the most humiliating nights for the club in a while. This, coupled with the many empty seats around the rest of the stadium, resulted in a flat atmosphere all evening. Barça struggling to break through the Andalusians’ line of defence for 90 minutes didn’t help either.

Some fans even chanted "Barça yes, Laporta no" outside the ground before kickoff, furious at what they perceive as the president having put financial gain ahead of dignity for the home fans. 

Monday was also the one year anniversary of the launch of the European Super League, a so-far failed breakaway competition that the game’s elite attempted to establish. The Super League would have essentially been a closed-off tournament, allowing the richest of clubs to continue enriching themselves while pulling up the bridge behind them to the rest of European and domestic football across the continent. FC Barcelona are still officially involved in the Super League, as they are one of three teams not to have renounced it along with Real Madrid and Juventus. 

Super Cup dealings, Super League failings

The manner in which the elite tried to carry out the Super League project – amid the pandemic, little by way of explanation, and non-existent surveying as to whether fans were actually interested in the idea – appalled many involved in football. The manner in which the attempted sporting coup fell flat on its face within days delighted the world, including Gerard Piqué, who tweeted in celebration: “Football belongs to the fans. Today more than ever.” 

Barça fans woke up on Monday morning to the news that Piqué was personally involved in taking football slightly further away from them – or at least, local fans. Spanish news outlet El Confidencial revealed that the Barça defender was a central figure in bringing the Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia. His company, Kosmos, is said to have earned €6 million per season in bringing the revamped competition to the Middle Eastern country with a pathy human rights record – €24 million in total over the course of four years. 

The legality of the deal is not in question, but the morality certainly is. Piqué was part of one of the four teams that travelled to the Middle East in January 2020 to play in the competition that he had a hand in organizing. 

Not many athletes have a hand in how the competition they compete in is run, while profiting both from organizing and competing in it. Nor do many athletes give the impression of celebrating so joyfully the fans of the game on one hand, while also taking football away from regular match-going supporters, bringing it instead to a country eager to sportswash their reputation with the biggest names in Spanish football. 

The position of “football belongs to the fans” is certainly a noble one to take; despite the vast differences in wealth between the game’s bottom and top tiers, everything is at least theoretically an open competition. It would certainly be difficult, but nothing is there to stop a team from a lower division from winning promotion to the top and then qualifying for Europe’s premier club competition by finishing in the top four places of La Liga. Every fan can dream, but the Super League would have put an end to that, establishing a permanent division in the footballing landscape separating the elite and the rest. 

Indeed, Piqué may even possibly achieve the dream of reaching the promised land in the coming years in an administrational role with FC Andorra, the club he owns through his company Kosmos Football. Sure it’s unlikely, but it’s not impossible. Currently, Andorra are on track to win promotion into the professional second division of Spanish football. Only a couple of years previously, Andorra jumped two divisions after purchasing their spot in the third tier of the pyramid following the dissolution of Reus. 

Frankfurt fans take over Camp Nou

Four nights before this Cádiz defeat, club president Joan Laporta described the night of the Eintracht Frankfurt game as “shameful” for how many away fans were able to access to the ground, first team manager Xavi admitted it was “strange” to play at home but almost like the away team, and the players acknowledged it was difficult to get their heads in the game, starting with being booed during the warm up in their own stadium. 

However, for as much as the club complained about how the evening unfolded, they only have themselves to blame. Laporta explained in post-match comments that sales of tickets were blocked from German IP addresses and German credit and debit cards, but such measures are easily circumvented. 

Season ticket holders who don’t want to attend matches are able to effectively ‘donate’ their seat to the club to re-sell, and any given Barça match usually has thousands of tickets available at premium prices aimed at fans coming from abroad excited to enjoy a one-off event for them. There was nothing to stop 30,000 Frankfurt fans from legitimately purchasing their tickets, either through the club website or through third party package sellers, just as there was nothing to stop away fans of any other visiting team from doing the same in any previous game. 

Club vice-president Elena Fort revealed that the club had made a profit of €3 million in ticket sales that day – significantly more than a typical game – but she also admitted that the profits left a bad taste in the mouth for how the night unfolded. 

A repeat of such a scene is unlikely. The club have said they will look to make tickets nominal in the future, an easy way of knowing exactly who is attending each match, but quite a deal of hassle for both the club and fans alike, and it’s not every week that Barça come up against a German side with passionate supporters that regularly follow their team to away games in huge numbers.

Between Barça sticking to the Super League project, charging such high prices for those willing to pay and thus pricing out many local fans, and Piqué’s until-now concealed involvement with bringing the Super Cup to Saudi Arabia, it’s difficult to buy claims that supporters are at the forefront of thinking on a day like this.