It was inevitable Pep Guardiola would speak out in support of those jailed in Catalonia over the past week, and it was just as inevitable the Manchester City manager would face a mixture of criticism and praise for doing so.
Wednesday saw calls for Guardiola to leave football behind and move full-time into politics, and Thursday sees an astonishing attack from a Marca column.
With a headline reading ‘Guardiola lies’, the Spanish newspaper makes clear the slant from the off.
The journalist Manuel Julia says he ‘feels insulted’ by the manager’s comments, and not for the first time.
So what did Guardiola say?
In a video released to the BBC, AFP and put on social media, the Manchester City boss spoke of human rights not being respected in Catalonia and of Spain experiencing an ‘authoritarian drift’.
He added that anti terrorism laws are being used to ‘persecute’ dissidents, and that even artists are having their freedom taken away. Spanish authorities were accused of ‘repression’ due to the way they’ve dealt with Catalonia independence movements.
The video ended with Guardiola urging those involved to sit down and talk.
Manuel Julia is clearly furious, going on to say the manager has an ‘evil character’: ‘A guy capable of any lie to achieve his goal.’
Pep is accused of having an ‘obsession’ with Spain, and advised to visit a ‘psychiatrist’ because his ‘eagerness to hurt the Spanish isn’t normal’.
The column ends with: ‘How much hate this man has. How much resentment. How much contamination. How much intellectual depravity. That can only fit in a head overflowing with evil. Guardiola is a gigantic ‘fake-news’ movement, shouting lies against Spain around the world.’
It’s probably not the best way to calm the situation. Guardiola’s words may have hurt people in Spain, and it will be a matter of opinion whether he’s right or wrong, but going for all-out verbal warfare doesn’t seem helpful.
