Prime Minister Manuel Valls, a lifelong Barca fan, has backed Catalonian independence and even gone as far to offer the current European champions a spot in the French top flight.
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Could it really be that Barcelona are forced to swap La Liga for a place in France’s Ligue 1 next season?
He added: “I’m a huge football fan, a Barca fan”. They’re in my blood.
Valls was referring to FC Monaco, which is owned by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.
Cardinal said the idea of Barcelona playing in France was “absurd”, because “the championships are organized to discover which is the best team in their territory”.
It’s thought that a large number of the club’s fans support the independence movement despite the footballing consequences, with pro-independence chants at every home game.
There had been concerns that an independence vote would force Barcelona to play in a much smaller Catalan league, which Spanish sports minister Miguel Cardenal warned would be hugely damaging to the club’s global ambitions.
“They couldn’t play in the league”. La Liga president Javier Tebas said in September that if Catalunya splits, La Liga will split, with Barca and Espanyol leaving. “Let’s hope we don’t arrive at that absurd situation”.
“The sporting aspiration of the Catalan clubs would be different”.
Could Barcelona’s league schedule in the future feature PSG, Monaco and Marseille instead of Real Madrid, Valencia and Atletico Madrid?
If Barcelona were to depart the Spanish league, this would lead to a significant drop in earnings for the Spanish football authorities.
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