Galactic gush delivers delirium and disgust in Spain
Friday 12 June 2009 12:00
“It’s insane! It’s obscene! What about the children! Frack me!”
Just four of the descriptions of La Liga Loca’s conceptualist art exhibition currently on display outside its penthouse apartment. And melting rapidly in the summer sun.
It’s also four of the descriptions plucked from Friday’s Spanish press to describe Real Madrid’s overdraft-straining, bank-busting attempts to reach the sparkling, promised land of the Champions League quarter-finals.
And maybe, just maybe, a decent Copa del Rey run too.
The double whammy of the Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo deals has split the battle-lines in the Spanish press in a fairly predictable way.
For those of a Madridista bent, the 180 million Euro spunkathon is unquestionably a Very Good Thing. Anyone who suggests otherwise is a heretic who deserves disembowelling.
For the Catalan papers, Florentino’s recent splurge is the work of Satan himself. As is the norm in this particular wacky world, there is no time or space allowed for any opinions in between.
Pérez’s back pocket-dwelling paper, Marca, blasts on Friday’s front page that Ronaldo is “the signing of the century” and gives 10 good reasons justifying Madrid’s outrageous outlay for his diving services next season.
One of them is that he is the new official hunk of the Real Madrid team. Something that Paris Hilton has also noted, according to tabloid titillation.
Roberto Gómez (whose love for Ramón Calderón has seen him severely sidelined at the paper) claims that Kaká and Ronaldo’s arrival in the Spanish capital means that “Real Madrid win, football wins, we all win!”
The paper’s editorial thumbs its nose up at those who doubt the financial sense of the double deal by arguing that it will generate more money than it costs.
Angel or demon?
The column also chooses to ignore the final years of the last Galactico age and David Beckham’s trophy-starved spell at the club by opining that “having a team with the biggest icon in world football is a guarantee of success.”
Over in AS-land, editor Alfredo Relaño writes that “in just one week, Florentino Pérez has excited Madridistas and appalled everyone else.”
Although he acknowledges the moral issues over such a big splash of cash bang in the middle of a recession and with four million unemployed in Spain, he too falls in step with the Pérez party-line.
(The paper also finds the space to print a letter from a Barcelona fan and AS reader claiming that Relaño is “the best editor of all four of the big sports papers that we have in Spain.” And the most modest, no doubt).
Inside, Emilio Pérez de Rozas writes in a tremendously sycophantic column that “Madrid owe 500m Euro and are spending 300m more. But it doesn’t matter. Pérez oozes power and credibility.”
La Liga Loca says "Get a room."
Those looking for moral outrage and more than a hint of fear need only go to the Catalan-crazy press for some self-righteously angry reaction to Ronaldo’s expected arrival in Madrid.
“It’s mad!” yells Mundo Deportivo on the reported 94m Euro transfer fee for Ronaldo.
“What message does this kind of behaviour send to the world and especially to children? What values does it promote? That everything can be bought?” rants Jaume Miserachs, getting his Puyol-patterned panties in a big old bunch.
Sport follow a similar theme, with Josep Maria Casanovas predicting the end of the world following Madrid’s latest move.
“An immoral and shameful sum... a provocation... a bad example in these times of crisis... Pérez is in love with the image that no-one can resist him and that he can do everything... the most scandalous signing in the history of football.”
As far as La Liga Loca is aware, Casanovas is already hammering away on Saturday’s editorial, entitled “WAAAAAAH!!!! IT’S JUST NOT FAIR!!!!”
With David Villa’s signing due any day now, the hyperventilating hyperbole in the Spanish press has only just begun.
---------------------------------------------
FourFourTwo.com: More to read...
La Liga Loca home
Blogs home
Latest Spain news
News home
Interviews home
Forums home
FourFourTwo.com home
La Liga Talentspotter
or
to add your comments
About Tim Stannard and Simon Talbot
When he isn't fighting the evil forces of flamenco or attracting libel actions for La Liga Loca,
Tim Stannard is building his media empire in Madrid. As well as contributing to Football365 and doing odd jobs elsewhere, Tim also works in the glamorous world of television as a producer, script writer, news editor, coffee boy and stand-in fluffer.
Simon Talbot? Well, he's a man of mystery.