2023-10-03 17:55:39
BarcelonaBeing a journalist who follows football is not always easy. There are great moments, but also others when you want to let it all go. Instead of talking about goals, players, memories or positive stories, you find yourself talking over and over again about referees, complaints and courts. Sometimes it’s hard to keep the illusion. The first few years when you enter this job, there always comes a time when a former manager or an ex-player confesses to you that a match was fixed. Or you admit a case of corruption. And you remember as a child, with a scarf around your neck, celebrating a goal without knowing that the match was fixed. The heart breaks into a bunch of little morsels.
And this happens to journalists who love big or small clubs. believe me There is no one who is free from sin. At some point in history, everyone has had a dishonest manager, a dangerous president, an unethical player. It’s normal, actually. In decades of professional football, with so much pressure, so much money at stake, you always find black sheep. In fact, it happens in all jobs. Pharmacists who sell to companies, unethical lawyers, banquets that deceive customers, bakers who do not respect safety standards. Rosa Peral was a police officer and our politicians have a good record. Football, in this sense, is not an exception either.
But we feel football is ours. We fight for it, in our clubs. We don’t feel the shirt of our bank, bakery or manager with the same passion as the team. So it hurts us more. These days we have seen it with the famous commissioner Villarejo. Curious character, this one, who generates an interesting phenomenon. If he appears saying that Real Madrid bought referees, Real Madrid fans consider him a puppet, an impostor. If he comes out saying that Barça is rotten, the Madrid fans believe him. Depending on what he says, he receives more or less truthfulness. Either way, he’s someone who’s moved through the sewers. Go find out what’s true, but that he says what he says shouldn’t come as a surprise either.
Football is one of the most successful businesses. Of those that move more interests. The boxes in the stadiums are full of local politicians. Others, being larger clubs, also have judges and generals. And when you talk to retired football people, they tell you things you can’t say in public because there’s no evidence. And in a trial, with your word against the defendant’s, you would lose. Because those who explain it to you, then they would be silent. Journalism, to denounce, needs evidence. Without evidence, you would lose judgments. And many of these crimes have left no physical evidence. They were private conversations. What a stink, all of it. Now, to be surprised by Villarejo’s latest statements… They’re not really surprising, no.
#stink #football #sewers