2023-07-12 22:05:11
The old Masía de Can Planes, a factory for some of the greatest talents of the Barcelona Soccer Club since 1979, it has kept hundreds of stories of dreams, successes and failures. Footballers who wore the Barça colors and those of many other teams from the European elite lived there and were trained. But within its stone walls, unpleasant situations such as harassment, abuse or harassment were also experienced. This was revealed by the newspaper ‘Ara’ in an extensive report in which he details some of these episodes contributing the voices of their victims or witnesses.
The Catalan newspaper explains that as in any institution that brings together students, in the grounds of the Barça there was newbies that they were «of less or more intensity depending on the generations. From putting toothpicks in the mattress of the newcomers to taking pictures of a very young resident while he was in the bathroom with a porno magazine strategically left there and blackmailing him with the image, destroying some slipper…»
But those jokes weren’t the worst. According to ‘Ara’, «during a few specific years, between the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s, a series of situations crossed all the red linesThey were produced little by little, first carried out by a group of veteran basketball players and later by soccer fans, but they left their mark. One boy was forced to insert a small plastic canister into the anus of a young resident who had just arrived and was restrained by two or three basketball veterans. If he refused, they did it to him. Three years later, a very similar situation occurred with another young basketball player. In this case, a group of soccer players simulated a rape. The victim was left naked on the ground. One of the soccer fans pretended to penetrate him. Another took a can of shaving foam and began to introduce it into the anus, spraying it with the contents of the object.
The report reveals the existence of “a group of boys, especially basketball players, who between 1989 and 1993 they suffered violence from some compañeros».
‘Ara’ explains that his research begins with the novel ‘Triunfador’, by the writer Joan Jordi Miralles, who lived in La Masía in the 90s and recounts the experience of a young basketball player from Manresa, Ulises, who lands at the Barça residence and live an authentic odyssey.
“Being in La Masía was an ordeal”
There are many athletes with whom the newspaper contacted to see if they confirmed or denied what the book had. And the journalists Albert Llimós and Núria Juanico Llumá found everything. Testimonies that denied or downplayed the hazing, but also others that gave Miralles’ story credibility. This is the case of former soccer player Xavi Moro or former basketball players Berni Tamames and Oliver Fuentes.
Another of the testimonies, in this case anonymous, confessed the bad times he had during his stay at the Barça residence: «The best moments were when my father came to Barcelona and went with him to the hotel. He could sleep peacefully, go to the bathroom peacefully. Being in La Masía was an ordeal. They forced very young children to live on the defensive, not to be hungry to go down to dinner, to stay on the street to return as late as possible. I used to do it. Emotional violence was constant».
“He was systematic. Not every day, but regular. When you stood up, it was your turn to receive, you didn’t sleep, you heard noises and things started to rain on you”, recalls Tamames, who, according to what he explained to ‘Ara’, was one of those who set limits and prevailed over the aggressors thanks, among other things, to his imposing physique.
The report also alludes to other problems of the residence at that time, such as the lack of control of the attendance of athletes to classesor the proximity of La Masía to an area where they used to work prostitutes and transvestites. “They were part of the usual landscape of adolescents. They met on a recurring basis, especially when they returned from training, and they ended up getting to know each other. “They told you ‘Someday, if you feel like it, come’, and out of curiosity you ended up going,” recalls a former player.
At present, ‘La Masía’ of Barça has nothing to do with thatmuch more professionalized, with many more resources and also an increase in the number of professionals, although for many of those affected by what happened in those years, this will not make them forget the bad memories.
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