The presence of football at this stage of the local (and Spanish) anger and the persistence of Moroccans (and people from other origins) has driven a complicated stake into this delicate conflict. Not the whole country thinks or acts the same way in the face of this multilateral drama. It is the right and the far-right who demand that the intruders, who arrived suddenly from across the strait of Morocco, leave immediately.
Now everything that is happening is hard, difficult to resolve, and very hard to explain, perhaps because those who have used it as part of the Spanish political diatribe are seeking a solution that would embarrass the government of Pedro Sánchez, whose downfall is sought at all costs by the two factions of the current national mess, the PP and Vox. Their leadership now wants the Government to fall, and with it those who came to Ceuta.
The tangle has now managed to drag football into the story. And as they say in Spain, oh my, what a stir! The national federation and, for example, Real Madrid, which like all football nowadays is full of foreigners, imposed on its players the idea of becoming champions against the foreigners who seek shelter in the open air.
Mbappé, along with other foreign Madrid players (Vinícius and Konaté), decided to hide the motto with which this and other teams went out to display Ceuta’s own slogan: “Todos somos caballas”, which is the slogan. The executives handed them Ceuta’s shirts as a shout to the Ceutí and they took them off immediately. They did not agree with that unilateral expression of support for Spaniards who do not want these foreigners. The players’ decision had a champion whose power, as a player, is demonstrated most by Mbappé, the one who speaks Spanish best among nearly all the foreign footballers working in Spain.
Mbappé, then, was the only one to raise his voice. He, like the other teammates, took off his shirt. The uproar directed at him was not softened by what he himself said, that he “also wanted to have a gesture with the emigrants”… He said exactly: “I stand with Ceuta and with all the victims. Because before being a player I am human. But I also wanted to have a gesture and a thought for all the immigrants who have lost their lives and who are in harsh conditions as well.”
As things stand in Spain at this moment, all the events related to the Ceuta-centered conflict are worth noting: any argument that is not approved by the parties I cited earlier (PP, Vox) will always be against Mbappé and against what he (and his teammates) dared to say.
I heard this line from an elderly politician who no longer wants to say what is happening in his country, but who wanted to tell me this about the Liga’s move and Real Madrid’s initiative: “The campaign the Liga got into was as stupid as it was inappropriate. And more so considering that almost half of the footballers are foreigners. I think it was Mouriño who said that politics divides (and let us not forget that the president of the Federation is a member of the PP and the head of the Liga is from Vox) and sport unites. But here nothing is respected with the aim of ousting Pedro Sánchez. What does Ceuta have to do with football except to rally crowds shouting ‘Pedro Sánchez, son of a bitch!’?”.
Now Spain lives in a state of melancholy: not even football fits the expression of freedom of expression.
—————————
