The indelible message inside Camp Nou stadium, home of Spanish and European football giants FC Barcelona, reads ‘Mes Que Un Club’, which stands for ‘More Than a Club’. The stadium has increasingly become a gathering place for Catalans’ harbouring breakaway sentiments as the region pushes for a separate identity.
A vote in favour of breaking away is likely to have severe repercussions not only on the Spanish La Liga, but on European football as a whole, if the words of Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, are anything to go by. Tebas warned yesterday that Lionel Messi’s Barcelona could not be in the league should Catalonia separatists succeed, saying it “would be a league without Catalan clubs”. The popular sentiments have also found a resonance with Pep Guardiola, celebrated former Barca coach who is an open supporter of the pro-breakaway movement.
That would also mean the exit of Espanyol, the other Catalan club, who along with the winners of five Champions League and 23 La Liga titles, could then find themselves in a league of their own.
