In a sea of Brazil fans that thronged the Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium at Kaloor for Kochi’s opening match of the FIFA Under-17 World Cup on Saturday, a bunch of Spanish fans in the legendary blue and red jersey of Spanish football giant Barcelona stood out.
With the match between Brazil and Spain still some time away, they stood outside the Kochi Metro station overlooking the main entry into the stadium and unfurled a hard-to-miss banner that simply read “Catalonia is not Spain.”
Their action reflected their sentiments on the political turmoil in the land of their favourite club in the wake of a recent referendum staged by the separatist government in Catalonia on leaving Spain. The referendum had attracted a backlash from the Spanish government sparking all round violence in Catalonia and forcing Barcelona to play their recent La Liga game against Las Palmas behind closed doors at their imposing Camp Nou.
The politically-loaded gesture came from a bunch of young fans of Barca representing Cules of Kerala, (Barcelona fans call themselves Cules, a word derived from the Catalan language), a fan club of Barca. They unfurled two other banners hailing the players from the Barca academy that feature in the Spain U-17 national team.
The Kozhikode-based fan club has a well maintained a Facebook page and a website. It was formed by Barcelona fans who met online. The Facebook page created in 2015 has 65,355 followers and features frequent posts, including an exhaustive monthly review on the developments in Barcelona Football Club on and off the pitch.
The tension in Spain over separatist movement in Catalonia trailed the Spanish team during media interactions as well. However, the players sought to downplay it and projected a united front.