Our turn to move
Xavier Vinyals
01/05/2005
Our turn to move
Xavier Vinyals
01/05/2005
From this month on, as the new President of the Pro Catalan Sports Teams Platform, I will write this column each month, which, until now was the task of our former President, Jaume Llauradó. The first thing I would like to do is to thank Jaume for the great work and the personal effort he has made during all these years at the head of the Platform. Work and effort that are often unknown and even more often unfairly despised but that have been carried out many more times than we might think and that have been extremely useful both for Catalan sport and its national teams, and for Catalonia as well. However, now we must speak looking towards the future. The fact is that over 200 days have gone by since the shameful assembly of the International Federation of Rollers Sports in Fresno, in which the recognition of the Catalan Team was impeded. Catalan sports authorities announce legal measures against the result of that vote in which the intervention of the President of the Catalan Federation was impeded and in which everyone could see some individuals that devoted themselves to taking pictures of the delegates that dared to vote for our admission. But pressure already came from far away. Previously, we had known of the letter sent from Madrid to the presidents of the federations represented in Fresno in which, among other bad things, it was lamented that the presidency of the FIRS (at that moment, Isidre Oliveras de la Riva, occupied this position; he resigned later on due to the scandal) “has lacked the necessary courage and loyalty to advocate the interests of Spain”. A language and a style very typical of our neighbours. Four months later, we have heard about another declaration. Deputies from all Catalan political parties –except PP (Popular Party)– reached an agreement at the beginning of April to introduce in the Statute the right of Catalan sport to provide itself with “its own sports teams” and the “exclusive authority of the Generalitat” (Catalan Autonomous Government) to “foster and promote” them. I wonder what the real impact of this goodwill in the future Statute will be given the fact that, to give an example, in the electronic blog of Miquel Iceta we may read: “the alternative of the scission of Catalan Sports Teams with respect to the Spanish ones would neither solve anything, and it is not to be wished, nor would it serve the interests of Catalan sport”. By the way, a paragraph that is in harmony with the letter sent by the Spanish authorities that we mentioned before. Therefore, it seems obvious that the legal means and the political ones appear to be, at least, quite complicated. Then, what can we do? Catalan society has always mobilised itself in favour of the defence of its rights and its signs of identity. The day of Sant Jordi (St Georges), I received as a gift the wonderful book by Xavier Polo, Todos los catalanes son una mierda (All Catalans are shit), words pronounced by the Francoist director of La Vanguardia, Luis de Galinsoga, which forced him to resign from his position, in which the activities of the Catalan Resistance during the dictatorship are narrated. Although recognising that both cases are not exactly the same, perhaps now it is our turn to move.
17.05.06