Jimmy Burns's Blog, page 15

Paco de Lucia: The Death of a Musical Wizard

 

World music is in mourning following the unexpected death , aged 66, on a Mexican beach,  of  Paco de Lucia, one of the greatest guitarists of modern times, a truly musical wizard.

Born Francisco Sanchez Gomez, to a Portuguese mother and an Andalucian father, de Lucia (a name he adopted professionally) spent his childhood  in a poor neighbourhood of Algeciras where his talent for playing guitar better than his father  flourished amidst the sounds, and legends of the gypsies.

Paco –who was not of pure gypsy blood but carried it musically in his veins and soul-made his first claim to fame in 1962, aged fourteen when together with his older brother-a singer-he won a flamenco prize in Jerez with the name Los Chiquitos de Algericas. He  went on to accompany Antonio El Bailarin , one of the most famous flamenco dancers of the late Franco era, and his similarly popular successor Antonio Gades.

Flamenco artists traditionally showed a tendency to remain rooted in the land they were born in.However de Lucia from early manhood travelled across the Atlantic and back, coming into touch with other musical currents in  North and South America, while pursuing a  conscious  search for the genuine  roots of flamenco that went deeper than the somewhat superficial  folkloric ‘for export’ version that was popularised with the advent of mass tourism during the 1960′s and 1970′s.

It was these roots than he found in his friendship and musical cooperation with the legendary singer  Camarón de la Isla. Together the two brought flamenco out of its manicured environment into a far more spontaneous, deeply felt, as well as experimental world that recovered forgotten essentials while breaking new ground.

To anyone listening to de Lucia play or Camaron  sing, it was evident that each carried within them a ‘duende’ that essential spirit that  turns flamenco into a transformative cultural  experience,.

Camaron died in 1992 from lung cancer after a life of hard drinking, hard smoking and drugs. By then the less hedonistic de Lucia,  had found increasingly varied sources of inspiration for his creative genius on guitar which in turn enthused a  numerous fan base not  just in his native Spain, but around the world.

His bestselling LP record ‘Entre Dos Aguas’- between two currents- showed extraordinary rhythmic and melodic versatility, its  fusion of Latin American and North African music influencing a new generation of artists in what came to be known as the ‘new flamenco’.

But de Lucia kept exploring. He broke   old taboos about the proper way to play a Spanish guitar by crossing his legs and resting the instrument loosely on his body  like the blues and jazz and Brazilians musicians he also shared recording sessions and concerts with.

The effortless quick-fire speed  and  range with which his long thin fingers  covered his  guitar left an enduring memory on anyone lucky enough to see and listen to this tall dark beauty of a man that made such a positive contribution to cultural engagement, making the music he played truly universal.  

 

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The night Barca recovered its self-esteem at The Etihad

 

As someone who lived through FC Barcelona’s drubbing  last season  at the hands of Bayern Munich, one thought above all dominated my  expectations  of last night’s match against Man City at the Etihad stadium:  Would Barca get beaten by Pellegrini ‘s  Premier League Galacticos, thus  losing not to  a team of star players but also more important boasting of a style that, encouraged by the ex-Barca executives,  on a good day, evokes the glory days of Guardiola under Laporta.

As things turned out, Barca’s 2-0 victory was achieved in a way that should go some way towards purging that sad memory, suggesting the fickleness of commentators who at  the time rushed into proclaiming the end of an era.

Of course the ultimate  test in this Champion’s League has yet to come, not least if and when Barca play either Bayern Munich or Real Madrid- the only two teams in my view seriously challenging for the title this season. But this should not minimise the impressive way in which Barca last night dispatched Man City,  outclassing them in possession and passing, and suggesting that they could have won by a bigger margin.

To fail to recognise one’s own failings or to  honour the evident superiority of the opposition, and  rant instead about a referee’s decision after a game , may be characteristic of Mourinho- the agent provocateur  of European football- but it dents Pellegrini’s  reputation as one of the game’s true gentlemen.

The fumbling hunk Di Michaeli’s  deliberate and desperate  cut down of the impish hobbit Messi as he headed on a determined final run for almost certain goal, seemed a  clear enough penalty foul not just to me and the thousands of Barca fans behind the goal, but to a majority of the Man City fans who were on either side.

Even those who may have  disputed this decision, were reduced to almost stunned silence by the way that Barca kept the ball for long periods and threatened to break through, against the repeated chorus of ‘oles’ by their fans.

“You don’t remember when we were shit,” chanted a Man City fan after the game. Man City was last night certainly a much evolved proposition from  the club that struggled in a lower division just a few years back, and its covered stadium showed it has a comfortable edge on exposed sectors of the Nou Camp,  but it can no longer claim supreme status this season. I don’t believe they will be able to  claw back in the second leg, even with Aguero back in the team.

There were of course two other incidents last night which arguably the ref got wrong and which went in Man  City’s favour. However  to reduce this game to an argument about a Swede’s whistle timing is to belittle a fascinating encounter  between giant teams, during which Barca prevailed, and without using its full ammunition.

This was a Barca with a Messi not quite back to full form, and with Neymar  also yet to be fully fit and get into his full stride.  As it was I think Barca’s manager Tata Martino could have gained a greater goal advantage had he risked  bringing in  Neymar earlier on, and Pedro instead of Sergio Roberto.

And yet if this Barca , injuries notwithstanding, looks and plays with greater energy and commitment than the team that struggled with evident signs of exhaustion in the last  weeks of last season, it is thanks to Tata’s rotation policy in the run-up to and beyond the New Year of 2014 and which is now entering a period of consolidation when the best team possible  is required.

There were times last night when the choreography led by Xavi and Iniesta in mid field recalled the superdream team days, while the combination play between Neymar and Alves in the last quarter of the game showed a real touch of Brazilian genius in attack which they will no doubt plan to replay in their own country later this summer.

And while on the subject of the World Cup, I still get a sense that Messi  is pacing himself for a tournament he knows he will need to win for Argentina if he is to replace Maradona as the best player in history. But he also knows that Barca winning another championship league is also a prize worth going for.

And for those in a rush  to write off La Roja’s chances, some of the best play on both sides last night was from players that aspire to represent the Spanish national squad. For Man City, Silva and Negredo failed to deliver goals but surely would have done, had they had  better support. Silva together with Barca‘s Xavi were my men of the match. By contrast,  Man City’s Navas is not as  fast or lethal  in attack as Real Madrid’s revelation of the season, the home grown Jesé .

But it was among Barca’s crop of international players- that one felt the  confidence and enjoyment that has been short of supply for too much of the season.

Less impressive on the night , despite one excellent save, was Valdes , too often seemingly struggling and uncertain in aerial  combat against the City big men of Negredo and Yaya Touré , and Macherano, the weakest link in Barca’s defence, that nevertheless held up thanks to a towering performance by Pique who seemed to relish showing Manchester City fans how much he has matured since leaving man United.

Nevertheless it was a nice gesture of Valdes, followed by  Jordi Alba, to throw his  shirt to the Barca fans, whose vocal and visual support was bigger than that of the home fans for most of the match. The subsequent tribute by  Barca players coming over and applauding their fans, was a moment I personally relished  as lover of good football- one in which a team and a fan base recovered  its sense of self-worth before a worldwide audience.

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Luis Aragones: The Wise Man from Hortaleza

 

Former Spanish national football coach Luis Aragones has died at the age of 75. Eulogies  have poured in from football enthusiasts around the world  for the man who ended La Roja’s 44-year wait for a major international trophy by winning Euro 2008 with exciting style of play.At the weekend  FC Barcelona and Atletico Madrid fans and players were among those who paid tribute to the tough but wise Castilian .

This is an abridged extract from my book on Spanish football La Roja (published in the UK by Simon and Schuster, in the US by Nation Books, and in Spain under the title De Rio Tinto a La Roja by Contra Ediciones.)

By the time of the World Cup in Germany in 2006 Spain had a new coach, Luis Aragones. After the conservatism of Clemente, the tactical cowardice of Camacho, and the lackluster caretaker role played by Inaki Saenz, expectations rose that the Spanish Federation had finally picked on someone who could motivate an emerging generation of players to combine in a team worthy of seriously challenging the best in the world, casting off the demons of the past that had condemned Spain to the status of football’s great underachiever.

Aragones was born three years into the Spanish Civil War in Hortaleza, a small rural Castilian community north east of Madrid in an area held by the Republican forces. During the post-war years, the area was developed into one of the satellite towns that surrounded the capital. Aragones, a heavily built youth with a reputation for speaking his mind and showing leadership in games, began playing with Getafe before joining Real Madrid. However it was at the unpredictable if always entertaining Atletico de Madrid that he spent the longest time (1964-74), sharing a pichichi in 1970 as one of La Liga’s top scorers, and reaching the European Cup final in 1974 before losing the championship to Bayern Munich.

Aragones came to the job of national coach with a track record as one of the best-known names in Spanish football, thanks to his involvement, often successful, as player and later coach in a variety of Spanish clubs including FC Barcelona. The sheer scope of his experience meant that Aragones over the years came to acquire a rich knowledge of the full potential of Spanish football, the varying styles and strategies of individual clubs, identifying what he thought worked best, and keeping a keen eye on emerging talent.

 Those who appreciated Aragones came to see him as a major football ‘mind’ and dubbed him El Sabio de Hortaleza, the wiseman from Hortaleza. There was talk of him becoming coach in the 1980’s. That the Spanish Federation delayed his appointment was partly due to Aragones’s reputation as a man with a somewhat manic psychological side to him and a tendency to buckle under pressure.  In 1988, while serving as a coach at FC Barcelona Aragones had shown his weakness when the club was confronted with an unprecedented players’ rebellion during which the seamier side of Spanish football had surfaced. The prelude to the rebellion was a rare investigation by Spain’s tax inspectors into the complex arrangements Barca had conspired to keep its foreign players in particular well remunerated.

The investigation, which surfaced after Terry Venables had left for Tottenham and Aragones had taken over as caretaker manager, initially found that the German international Bernd Schuster had signed two contracts with the Catalan club, although only one had been declared to the tax authorities. Further probes uncovered similar tax avoidance deals involving other players, including elaborate payments to offshore companies, designed to minimize the amount of tax they had to pay on their earnings. When the club was ordered to pay to the Spanish Inland Revenue what was owed, the president Jose Luis Nunez passed the bill onto the players.

The reaction of the players was swift and very public. They called a press conference in Barcelona’s Hotel Heredia pointing out that the double contracts had been drawn with the club’s full approval and encouragement, and that it was therefore the club’s responsibility to make provision for the loss. In what came to be known as the ‘Mutiny of Heredia’, the players issued a joint statement. “Nunez has deceived us as individuals and humiliated us as professionals,” the statement declared. One of the Barca players absent on the day was Gary Lineker who was away on call-up duty for the England squad and who felt he had nothing to gain from being associated with the row. “You just couldn’t imagine such a mutiny taking place in England, the fans just wouldn’t buy it, “Lineker told me when we discussed the incident.

 Aragones decided to get involved, and suffered as a result. During a pre-match strategy meeting with the players, Aragones broke down in tears, the stress of managing one of the biggest clubs in the world exacerbated by the strained relationship between the team and the president. The mutiny eventually fizzled out with the players failing to secure the support of the fans, and the club engaging in some imaginative accounting. Then Nunez delivered a master-stroke by bringing back to Barca, as Aragones’s replacement, the one person who seemed to be able to guarantee the success and spectacle that so many Barca fans pined for: Johan Cruyff.

As he grew older- and Aragones was one of the oldest characters in modern Spanish football-his love of the game came to sustain him as he struggled with his weakness for drinking and gambling and falling into dark moods. In October 2004, Aragones was embroiled in a public controversy of a distasteful kind when a Spanish TV crew filmed him coaching Jose Antonio Reyes with a reference to the Spanish wing forward’s Arsenal team mate Thierry Henry. Aragones was heard shouting: “Tell that negro de mierda that black shit that you are better than him. Don’t hold back, tell him. Tell him from me. You have to believe in yourself, you’re better than that negro de mierda.”

The comments caused a wave of protest in the British media and caused some consternation elsewhere in the football world, although within Spain the media’s reaction was generally muted. Aragones himself was unapologetic for an offence he claimed not to have committed, insisting he had a “very easy conscience.” In comments that echoed the less diplomatic period of the Clemente period, Aragones stated: “I’m obliged to motivate my players to get the best results. As part of that job, I use colloquial language, with which we can all understand each other within the framework of the football world.”

A month later black English players Ashley Cole and Shaun-Wright Phillips were subjected to racist abuse from the crowd at the Bernabeu during an England-Spain ‘friendly’. The Spanish Football Federation was initially fined £44,650 .But it took the Spanish Football Federation another  five months to take any further action of its own and when it came it horrified anti-racism campaigners by its levity.Aragones was fined 3,000 Euros, equivalent to his estimated day’s wages. The Director General of Spain’s Sports Council Rafael Blanco dismissed any link between the reaction of isolated groups of fans and Aragones’ comments.

 Both incidents put Spanish football’s attitudes towards race under international scrutiny, exposing a culture at best of ambivalence, at worst of collective denial within Spain itself. Henry himself described the ineffectiveness of the fines as “absolutely ridiculous’ “You really have to look at the Spanish authorities and they must take a long look at themselves. They obviously don’t care about racism. It is laughable. They fined Aragones for the sake of it, not because they felt he did something wrong, “he declared.

By contrast Henry’s other Spanish Arsenal colleague Manuel Almunia along with  players from La Liga ,  black and white,  including  the Brazilian-born   Spanish international midfielder Marcos Senna followed the line adopted by Spanish officials, insisting that  Aragones was really a decent guy but a victim of overreaction  and misunderstanding. He had been lost in translation, in other words.

Aragones was not sacked, after the Spanish media further excused his statement and the monkey chants of the Spanish fans. While a minority of Spanish commentators were critical of Aragones, the episode, as the seasoned Irish hispanist Paddy Woodworth pointed out , revealed  “deeply contradictory attitudes to race in the Spanish psyche, which go back a long, long way”. However perhaps the most surprising thing about the British media’s response to the racism displayed by elements of the Spanish football world was  that they should have been so surprised.

 As any British journalist, player, or coach who has been closely involved in Spanish football over many years has witnessed, Spain has been no more immune from racism than any other country. Long after the Franco dictatorship had given way to parliamentary democracy in Spain, it was not uncommon to hear monkey chants and other racial abuse greet black players in Spanish stadiums. In 2006, the FC Barcelona player Eto’o walked off the pitch after suffering continual racist abuse from Zaragoza fans. Three years later Barcelona fans were shown on national TV repeatedly abusing Espanyol’s Cameroon international goalkeeper Carlos Kameni with the club’s stewards doing nothing to deal with the situation.

Modern Spain struggled to come to terms with itself as a multi-cultural society when faced with the huge rise in immigration.  Nevertheless a growing number of Spanish born sons of immigrants were making their way through the youth academies to the first teams of major clubs and competing for places in the national squad.  Perhaps one of the most interesting recent examples was the promotion in December 2009 of Jonas Ramalho-the son of an Angolan father and a Basque mother- to the first team of Athletic, the last remaining major Spanish club to incorporate a black player, because of its long-standing policy of having only totally Basque blood players.

Three years earlier, Spain, under Aragones, came to the World Cup in Germany with few friends among the British press certainly. The ‘racism’ issue was not so easily dismissed. FIFA used the tournament, in the words of Brian Glanville, “for a half baked, superficial initiative to ‘kick out racism. Its “irrelevance was sharply exposed” by the presence of the Ukrainian manager Oleg Blockhin who had escaped any sanction despite having made a “venomous, unashamedly racist attack on the use of black footballers in his country. But equally worthy of censure, according to Glanville was the immunity of Aragones. He was “guilty of a gross and gratuitous piece of racism”. Although the Spanish Federation had fined him, Glanville found the punishment inadequate. “If UEFA, not to say FIFA, were looking for someone to punish as an example, here surely was a clear candidate.”

And yet as even Glanville was forced to admit Aragones’ Spanish team had also come to the world stage “trailing clouds of glory, long unbeaten,” and with a different narrative with which to win hearts and minds. It was Aragones in an early encounter with the Spanish media that referred to his squad as La Roja. Ever since most Spaniards could remember-and that dated back to the Franco years- the squad had been called ‘La Seleccion Nacional’ (The national team). But the definition of nationhood became a complicated business in post-Franco Spain with various regions claiming increasing autonomy if not independence from Madrid .Only a minority of Spanish fans of an extreme right persuasion objected to a colour that for them conjured up memories of communists in the Civil War. There were others-again a minority- who took a cynical view that Aragones wanted to ingratiate himself with  the incumbent socialist government of Jose Luis Zapatero, which  was still living a pre-crisis honeymoon period.

For his part, Aragones played down any deeper political significance behind La Roja . The  fact was that the Spanish team had played in red shirt (and blue trousers) even during the latter years of the Franco regime. Spain was now simply following in the steps of other successful football nations who had made a trademark of their shirt colours – Italy (Azure); France (Les Bleus), the Dutch (Brilliant Orange.) For those with marketing ambitions, or of a more philosophical bent, La Roja transformed the somewhat  destructive and negative La Furia of old into something as vital but more life giving as wine or even blood, transfused rather than spilt.  From such synchronicity, the best Spanish tourist posters had been made. Spain was not only different, it was now potentially better by far.

Spain got off to an impressive start, beating Ukraine 4-0, and ending up unbeaten at the top of their group after defeating Saudi Arabia and Tunis. With Marcos Senna, a bedrock in midfield, supported by two of the most versatile and hard-working defenders, in La Liga- Barca’s Carlos Pujol and Real Madrid Sergio Ramos, the squad strike capability was beefed up with the inclusion of three young’turks’ Valencia’s David Villa (a future Barca player) and David Silva and Atletico de Madrid’s Fernando Torres, who would subsequently transfer to the English |Premier League. Within a year of the World Cup Torres would join another Spanish international  Xabi Alonso,  and Spanish coach Rafa Benitez at Liverpool, and later Chelsea. Silva would later move to Manchester City.

But predictions in the Spanish media that La Roja, which had had an unbeaten run of twenty-five matches, would go on and beat France in the next round – Marca headlined ‘WE ARE GOING TO SEND ZIDANE INTO RETIREMENT!” -proved overoptimistic. Spain lost and exited the tournament That autumn, following a defeat by Northern Ireland and by  Sweden-seemingly making qualification for Euro 2008 difficult-  Aragones struggled to hang on to his job. The fickle Spanish media turned and called for his resignation, forcing the Spanish Federation’s president Angela Maria Villar belatedly to come to his defence in public.

 Behind the scenes the Federation had contacted Miguel Angel Lotina about taking over, but the plan was shelved after Spain beat Argentina 2-1 in a friendly and the players had united behind Aragones. “When one loses, everything is a disaster, there is a lot of criticism, and most of it at the ‘Mister’ (the coach). That is unfair and that is how we all saw it. We became stronger and more united around him, “recalled Pujol. 

It was not just the Spanish media that was unimpressed. The doyenne of British commentators on Spanish football, Sid Lowe of the Guardian was strongly critical of Aragones: “He is the coach that couldn’t even take Spain to their traditional quarter-final exit point at the World Cup. He is the coach whose timing is so bad that he stuck by Raul when he was awful and unfit  then, motivated more by the captain’s response to being a substitute during the World Cup than his performances, dropped him just as he was showing signs of getting back to form.”

The Spanish coach had in fact offered up his resignation twice.Aragones  was on record as saying he would walk away if Spain did not get to the semi-final of the World Cup, only to insist that he wouldn’t allow himself to be prisoner of his words. Lowe described Aragones’ 25 years in management as actually “pretty average”, claimed that his “constant chopping and changing” had undermined  the squad, and that he was not the kind of person that be allowed to manage a national squad anyway. “His behavior is just plain bizarre-from cutting television cables that ran “suspiciously” close to the dugout, to escaping false teeth and disappearing down secret tunnels to avoid shaking hands with his enemies, “wrote Lowe.

In the coming months it became clear that far from contributing to another Spanish football disaster, Aragones had laid the foundations of a predominately youth-based and dynamic project that deserved time to mature. Aragones moved from being lampooned as an eccentric geriatric to living up to his legendary reputation for wisdom. At Euro 2008, he took Spain to its first major international trophy (outside the gold of the Olympics) in 44 years, a Torres goal securing a precious 1-0 victory over Germany in Vienna.

Spain was finally champions. And they had done it in a way that  seemed brush aside old political antagonisms while encompassing all the best currents of style that had hitherto developed in a dysfunctional manner, and mainly at club level. Spain played with the high-tempo virility that had been the badge of the English since they first arrived in Rio Tinto, but with the technique and inspired creativity that had shown itself over many years, criss-crossing across the Atlantic. As the football journalist Paul Doyle commented: “With players like Iniesta, Xavi, Cesc Fabregas, Ramos, Torres, Villa, David Silva, and Iker Casillas Spain had a vibrant organization, each element exuding adventure and intelligence. Their movement, speed and offensive intent make them devastating.”

So what had brought about this transformative fusion? The answer lay partly in Aragones’ pragmatism, and partly in the nature of the players themselves. Perhaps Aragones’ most totemic moment was when he decided to exclude Raul, one of the legendary star players of Real Madrid, judging him past his peak, and a destabilizing element both in the changing room and in the field, having got used to exercising too much power in his club.

A watershed was reached when that autumn, in the run up to Euro 2008, Aragones dropped Raul Gonzalez from the squad and brought in Raul Tamudo Montero, captain of Espanyol.With Torres and Villa injured, Aragones gambled on another newcomer Raul Albiol in defence along with   Iniesta, Xavi and Cesc Fabregas as then backbone of his team.  Spain played sensationally in a key qualifying match against Denmark, beating them 3-1 with the victory rounded off thanks to a superb debut international goal by Albert Riera after Aragones had substituted Joaquin in the 69th minute. The match proved a huge moral boost for the Spanish squad as it ensured their qualification for a tournament they believed they could win.

 Thus was Aragones proved right. Spain played better without Raul (Gonzalez). Drawing on the legacy, among others of Cruyff, Aragones had finally embraced tiki-taka, the style that prioritized passing, patience and possession above all else, and for this he drew on players for whom such beauty in motion came naturally. For years, Spanish commentators had tried to excuse their country’s failure with talk of bad luck, without ever quite admitting that the country just did not have a collective unit of native players capable of delivering the successes they achieved at club level. But now the talk was, of an exciting unprecedented talent pool that transferred seamlessly from club to national squad, and coalesced to play football that was both aesthetic and effective.

A mixture of bad luck and bad play had combined to deny the Spanish national squad (with the exception of the Olympic Gold in 1992) any major tournament victory since Marcelino’s winning goal against Russia in the European Nations Cup final at the Bernabeu on the 21st June 1964.  Now the Gods smiled on a team that felt it deserved to win, and could. Minutes before the start of the game the Spanish coach Luis Aragones took Torres to one side in the dressing room and repeated a ritual he had once performed when the coach and the rising young star were both at Atletico de Madrid. “You are going to score two goals,” Aragones told Torres and then drew the sign of the Cross on his forehead.

The Torres goal in the 33rd minute of the Euro 2008 final at the Ernst Happel stadium in Vienna, was a defining moment in a tournament in which La Roja, had finally proved themselves worthy champions of Europe with their formidable attacking football. In an important sense this was an emblemic parting of the ways for Spanish football. Torres saw his star rise just as another legend of Spanish football, Raul saw his fall-and for that too Aragones was responsible, earning the wrath of diehard Real Madri

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Pedro J. : Story of a resignation foretold

 

The influential founding editor of Spain’s second-biggest newspaper, El Mundo, stepped down last Thursday after a decline in circulation and a series of revelations of alleged corruption in Spain’s Partido Popular governing party.

Love him or hate him-and, as a former colleague,  I fall into  no-man’s land- the Spanish journalist Pedro.J Ramirez has earned a deserving place as a significant figure not just of the Spanish political and cultural scene, but as a  notable member of the international media fraternity.

His resignation from El Mundo, the newspaper he has edited for many years marks a potential cross-roads for the future of the Spanish newspaper industry of incalculable consequences. There must be now a question mark over the future of El Mundo, so dominated by his personality as Spanish newspapers generally struggle to survive amidst dramatic falls in circulation and advertising revenue.

The career of Pedro J as he is widely known has personified the twists and turns, peaks and troughs of Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy, making as many enemies as friends along the way. His career reminds me that anyone who sticks their head above the parapet politically in Spain seems destined to be a protagonist but risks also becoming a victim of intolerance and intrigue, the tragic consequence of a divided nation lacking any concept of the common good.

The long Youtubed and manically twittered farewell to his newsroom was typical of the man and the journalist who has courted publicity most of his professional life, partly because of arrogance, but also because of a deeply felt passion about the power of the media as a potential fourth estate.

Without a jacket and sporting his characteristic traditional newspaper braces, Pedro J. held up copies of past front pages that for better or for worse exposed, not always with accuracy or without political subjectivity, provoked debate, and often defined outcomes.

Raised in a middle-class family from La Rioja, he received his primary and secondary education at a catholic school in Logroño before studying journalism at the University of Navarra, where he also began a degree in Law.

 He graduated with a degree in Journalism in 1973- two years before Franco’s death and a time when Spanish culture, newspapers included, were beginning to make significant  strides in breaking through years of political censorship.

Pedro J. left for the United States- where he worked as a lecturer in Contemporary Spanish Literature at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania. During this time he experienced   the decisive year in which an investigation by the Washington Post led to the downfall of the presidency of Richard Nixon.

Hugely impressed by the outcome of the Watergate case, Pedro J. interviewed the editor of The Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, for the magazine La Actualidad Española, along with other important figures at the time in US media.

From then on, Pedro J. was to hold not just the Washington Post but other American and British newspapers, like the Guardian and the Financial Times, in the highest esteem for the organisation of their news desks, the professionalism of their investigative reporting and their courageous resistance to political influence, epitomised in the FT’s motto, ‘Beyond Fear or Favour’, standards which he did not always stick to, however much he claimed to aspire to them.

From 1975 to 1980, when other journalists were focusing on bringing out El Pais, the first major daily newspaper of the democratic post-Franco era, Pedro J.  worked at the long established conservative newspaper ABC, writing the Sunday section on political analysis called Crónica de la Semana.

Nevertheless Pedro J. soon formed part of the widening cultural and political landscape as Franco receded into history, and democracy became accepted by a majority of Spaniards.  On 17 June 1980, aged only 28, he was appointed editor of the newspaper Diario 16. While initially part of a new stable of Post-Franco and new journalism, the newspaper had lost its way and appeal to new generation of readers, and was then selling barely 15,000 copies and threatened with closure. However, within two years, under his editorship the newspaper had reached a circulation of 100,000 copies, and five years after that it would attain 150,000.

Pedro J. took a resolute editorial stance in defence of Spain’s nascent democracy and against those behind the attempted right wing coup d’état on 23 February 1981. A year later, on the first anniversary of the coup attempt, he was expelled from the Court of Justice where the trial was held against those involved, as supporters of the coup refused to appear in court as long as the he was present. The Military Justice Supreme Council revoked his credentials and forced him to leave the courtroom.

This incident led to a historic resolution issued by the Constitutional Court, dismissing the decision by the Military Justice and proclaiming readers’ rights to information for the first time since the establishment of democracy.

During the late 1980’s and 1990’s Pedro J’s professionalism and politics, as the publications director of the newspaper’s parent company Grupo 16, became the subject of increasing controversy and he was sued several times for libel on account of his often sensationalist coverage of high profile events, not least the illegal shoot-to-kill policy against ETA suspects carried out during the socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez.

On 23 October 1989, seven months after his dismissal, he founded El Mundo, along with three high-ranking executives from Grupo 16: Alfonso de Salas, Balbino Fraga and Juan González. More than 50 Diario 16 journalists quit their jobs and joined the project. The parent group of the British newspaper The Guardian was one of its first shareholders, and the Italian daily Corriere della Sera invested a year later.

As Editor of El Mundo, Pedro J. immediately  set the political agenda during the 1990’s, outspoken in its allegation of high level government and business corruption, and with a series of further exposes of the shoot-to-kill GAL plot that  led to the murder of more than two dozen Basque activists, mainly in the south of France. These revelations led to trials and convictions, including those of the former Interior Minister José Barrionuevo and his associate Rafael Vera.

In October 1997, a secret video recording was widely circulated anonymously, showing a somewhat eccentric sexual encounter between Pedro J.  and a woman . Pedro J. did not resign, claiming he was being attacked over his coverage of state-funded anti-ETA death squads named GAL. Six people were convicted for violating his privacy. The sentence, upheld by the Supreme Court, established that the purpose of the entrapment had been to change the editorial stance of El Mundo.

Less known is  the impact the scandal had in undermining discreet moves by the Financial Times to enter into a media partnership with El Mundo, with senior executives of the British newspaper group , then shareholders in the Spanish publishing company Grupo Recoletos, fearing that its brand might be tarnished by association with Pedro J.

In 2004 the FT sold its majority shareholding in Grupo Recoletos, twelve years after the formation of the Spanish group from the merger of Marca, the sports publisher, and Expansión. The FT’s parent company Pearson, which had held stakes in Marca and Expansión, had become majority shareholder in the new group in 1994 and moved to 99 per cent control in 1999.

In 2007, Unedisa, the publishing company of El Mundo -already widely controlled by the RCS group, owner of Corriere della Sera- acquired 100% of the shares in Grupo Recoletos, a leader in specialised press in Spain. As a result of this operation, Pedro J. Ramírez, as General Editorial Director, was put in charge of content published in newspapers such as Marca, Expansión and Diario Médico; magazines including Telva and Actualidad Económica, and the television channel Televisión Digital Veo TV.

By then Pedro J. had led El Mundo into further disputed political territory, supporting  the centre-right PP government of Jose Maria Aznar , (1996-2000), before opposing it during its second term over Spain’s support for the US led invasion Iraq.

In more recent years I was among those who publicly challenged Pedro J’s professionalism over his insistence-and El Mundo’s reporting-that ETA was behind the Madrid bombings of March 2004 which killed 191 people and wounded 1,800.  Having covered the bombings myself for the FT, I believed his  newspapers’ investigation into  the terrorist plot lacked rigour ,played to a domestic political agenda and tainted sources, and ignored compelling evidence that ETA was not involved but that Islamists were.

In truth I have never found it easy to pigeon hole Pedro J. who I’ve generally considered a personable and often courageous rogue. As an occasional contributor to El Mundo myself under his editorship, I admired his continuing faith in the ability of good journalism to press for the truth, even if his brash style and El Mundo’s reporting seemed often to share the values of a tabloid rather than a serious broadsheet.

Pedro J. track record is impressive. It can boast of outspoken denunciations of alleged corruption in the governments of opposing parties, of the failure of the Spanish monarchy, and of the undemocratic aspects of Basque and Catalan nationalism, while never pretending him to be a saint despite his conservative Catholic education, and the power that the Catholic Church still has in Spain.

 In the end it was Pedro J. reputation as a political maverick which meant he was considered a liability by too many vested interests, leaving him too few influential friends prepared to defend him.  

Officially Pedro J. has reached agreement with his employers that will allow him to continue as a contributor and adviser. He also hinted last week that if he was finally pushed he was prepared to set up a new media venture, likely to be digital. I hope and trust he will get the money for it.

His resignation comes against the background of poor financial results at El Mundo which have dragged down its parent company, the Italian publishing group RCS, which owns over 96 percent of Unidad Editorial. In 2011, the Spanish consortium announced losses of 243 million euros, which rose to 526 million the following year. Only a cash injection from RCS prevented the newspaper from folding.

Speculation has it that El Mundo may face closure or merger with other newspapers like La Razon and ABC in what would many analysts see a long overdue rationalisation of the Spanish newspaper industry.

But as a youthful 61-turning 62 next month-, Pedro J. this week was in characteristically defiant mood as he confirmed his resignation as editor. He is not unlikely to disappear from the limelight- nor should he be allowed to. No serious democracy should be allowed to silence him. Te deseo suerte, Pedro J.

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The competing claims on Barca

 

Watching FC Barcelona these days certain things seem evident to me.

Firstly, the circumstances surrounding the resignation of club president Sandro Rosell (see earlier blog)have fuelled a sense of political and administrative uncertainty, despite the remaining governing junta trying to carry on as if nothing had really happened.

The fact is that it is unusual for the president of any major corporation or government to resign without giving more of an explanation that one suggesting an unspecified conspiracy against him.

Meanwhile the  fiscal and judicial investigation  into the Neymar  deal continues without anyone really knowing what its outcome will be, and rival camps , including former president Joan Laporta’s , are calling for early elections.

It would be inhuman to believe that the controversy surrounding the higher echelons of FC Barcelona has not left the fans and club members feeling disorientated. Blame the bad mood  in the Nou  Camp perhaps on the weather-colder and wetter even in the Med this time of year, and Madrid’s continuing refusal to authorise a referendum on Catalan independence-a vote which polls show 80 per cent of Barca members want.  But questions are being raised about just how democratic and accountable this club that prides itself as being ‘mes que un club‘ really is.

The sense of ‘instability’ at the top surely has had some psychological impact on the players who seem affected already by another problem which I would call the World Cup syndrome. For we are now at the stage in the season where certain players are thinking about getting to Brazil , fit enough not only to make an impact, but shine.

Messi, who has been suffering from injury problems-again-knows that  this World Cup is the one he needs to win with Argentina if he is to conclusively prove that he is a greater star than Maradona. He is evidently below his best form.Meanwhile Neymar, who can’t be relishing the controversy that his transfer deal has generated,  knows that his country as host nation expects nothing less than to emerge as world champions. Yesterday he looked uncharacteristically gloomy, watching Barca defeated by Valencia as a spectator.

As for some of the other Barca players- Busquets, Xavi, Pedro, Valdes, Jordi Alba,Pique, Cesc and  Iniesta ( I discount Pujol because of his ongoing injury problems) all of them have one eye on defending La Roja’s title as World Champions as a time when manager Vicente Del Bosque is spoilt for choice as to the Spanish talent that is available for selection not just in La Liga but in the Premier League.

In recent games, including last night’s, there were times when Barca players-notably the defenders- seemed to pull back from tackles, as if consciously preserving themselves. At the same time when Messi plays, the team revolves around him. All well and good when he is in top form. But not so good, when he is not.

After  the defeat against Valencia, the competing pressures on FC Barcelona’s star players  are considerable.

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The Rosell resignation: Is Barca more than a club?

 

More than thirty years of journalism, much of it investigative, with one of the most respected newspapers in the world- The Financial Times- taught me to be mindful of  two of the contradictory threads  in human nature: there is often more cock-up than conspiracy, while there is seldom smoke without fire.

 

In the absence of the full facts of the case being in the open, and  pending the outcome of an ongoing judicial enquiry , I am  reluctant to jump  too quickly to  any conclusions about the current goings on at FC Barcelona, off the pitch.

But as this is a  club that I have publicly commented on  for many years and to which  I feel part of me  belongs as a fan and a paid up member,   I cannot remain silent, lest this might be interpreted  as indifference. Of one thing I am clear:   the sudden resignation of  Barca president Sandro Rosell raises more questions than answers with the act itself-impetuous rather than calculated or widely consulted according to a high level source- doing the club no favors as it enters the most competitive stage of the season.

If this is a conspiracy, it begs the question as to who is behind it and what the motivation might be? A senior executive of Barca I dined with earlier this week suggested that the negative commentary about Barca under the Rosell presidency from the questioning of his controversial sponsorship contract with Qatar and Pep Guardiola’s departure through to allegations of unpaid taxes by the Messi family and now the Neymar deal  came from unnamed persons, envious of Barca‘s success and  determined to undermine the good name of Catalunya as it presses for its right to hold a referendum on independence from Madrid-a right wished for by 80 per cent of the current membership.

That would suggest  that not just tax inspectors, and judges, but some of Barca’s own members, former star players and managers (inter alia the emblemic Johan Cruyff), and ex club executives  who have been critical of  Rosell’s  personality and governance are really working actively on an anti-Catalan or anti-Barca  agenda and in some cases, like Jordi Cases,  paid up double-agents.

Mr Cases, in case you didn’t know this by now, is the individual nicknamed by some Barca  excecutives ‘el diablo‘ or the devil. He has been a thorn in the side of the Rosell regime  for over four years, specifically since 2010 when he and other Barca fans helped launch an unsuccessful   campaign to try and stop FC Barcelona from breaking with tradition and selling its strip not just for money,  but to a Arab country with a disputed record on human rights  and allegations of corruption hanging over it.

 Mr Cases runs a pharmacy in Barcelona not far away from the Nou Camp. He is a paid up member of FC Barcelona. Politically he declares himself a Catalan nationalist and in favour of independence from Spain . Today, after Rosell had resigned,  Mr Cases was reported to have suggested  that dark anti-Catalan forces had used him for their own purpouses , thus fuelling the conspiracy within the conspiracy theory. But until now he appears to have had more in common ideologically with former FC Barcelona chief turned radical politician Joan Laporta than Real Madrid’s Florentino Perez.

An alternative narrative is that Rosell whose dealings in Brazil date back many years to his time as a senior Nike executive,  could have foreseen that the Neymar contract was always bound to be subject to scrutiny and could have saved himself and the club a lot of trouble if he had insisted on a straight deal  with the various parties that appear to have been involved in aspects of  the contract.

What I have been  told by  a usually reliable source  about the Neymar deal suggests that it was far from straight forward,  that arrangements were made to try and minimise Spanish tax liability, that  Rosell agreed to raise the price the club was prepared  to pay and signed  under some pressure, with fears -perhaps inflated by interested parties-that the Brazilian’s representatives were in an advanced stage of a counter bid by Real Madrid, in breach of earlier understandings.

Rosell certainly did not share Mr Cases’s  belief that he Mr Cases, as as a paid up member of a club owned by its members, had every right  to demand chapter and verse of Barca‘s financial dealings , whether involving major sponsorship deals, TV contracts , ticketing,stadium construction, or indeed players,however many goals they score.

Mr Rosell has repeatedly insisted that there is nothing sinister behind the euros 57 million he says was paid for Neymar, believes that Barca fans should be thankful that he paid a great deal less for a better player than Real Madrid paid for Gareth Bale, and that only confidential  clauses has prevented him  from revealing more details. Perhaps club presidents, agents, and players  around the world have been getting away with this kind of attitude for many years, believing  that total financial transparency is not good for the morale of the dressing room, and let alone of the fans who generally earn much less and pay more tax and most of whom at the end of the day just want to see their team play well, and win.

 But by its own definition, Barca is mes que un club ,  more than a club- it aspires to exemplary human conduct not just in the quality of its football , but in the way the club engages with the world, in the way it claims to have a true sense of the common good beyond commercial gain or even personal ambition.

Sandro Rosell should know that the best reputations endure on the basis of honesty not obfuscation. For if he doesn’t, his resignation will come back to haunt him as a less than honourable act of escape.

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Atletico Madrid throws Barca the gauntlet

 

Nothing like a walk on my favourite beach in Sitges, to rediscover in some spontaneous beach football involving Catalans, other Spaniards and Latin Americans the game in its all its elemental joy, natural talent and skill.

That the Camp Nou is but a short train ride and quick metro hop away gives Sitges’s inhabitants the added privilege of living within the radius and aura of one of the greatest sporting clubs in the world, FC Barcelona , that commands a loyalty only wholly understood not just in terms of a love of football but what it can bring to one’s life experience in terms of solidarity and creativity.

I write these lines from Sitges not so far from that beach, hours away from one of the La Liga matches that demands close attention by football fans around the world. Tomorrow Barca plays away against Atletico de Madrid in what promises to be one of the most fascinating league encounters of this season’s football calender.

Something of the beach mentality has returned to FC Barcelona. After the let-down of the Guardiola days, the underlying gloom of the Tito Vilanova phase, and the sense of disorientation of the early Tata Martino days, the club has rediscovered a sense of identity and purpose. A sense of enjoyment is once again palpable among the players and their fans.

Not all is perfect. While the much missed Valdes is now back as first choice goalkeeper for all matches except those in the Spanish Cup, Barca has continuing problems in find a reliable defence with no one quite able to admit that Pujol is reaching the end of his career and what is left is not cohesive enough.

But Barca have found a rhythm and aggression to their attacking play that was evidently missing last season. While Xavi and Iniesta’s form has benefited from Martino’s rotation policy, the Argentine manager is spoilt for choice in terms of attacking option with Pedro, Alexis, and Cesc at the top of their game, and Messi and Neymar returning to form after recovering, respectively from injury and illness.

Tomorrow Barca faces the one team apart from Real Madrid, that poses a genuine rival challenge for The Spanish league championship but also the Champions. It is a team that under the management of Diego Simeone is firing on all cylinders thanks toan impressive backbone made up of Courtois, Godin, Koke,and Diego Costa, as solid in defence as it it conquering in attack. With the exception of Bayern Munich, no other European team has climbed such heights over the last two seasons.

Atletico will go into tomorrow’s match wanting to prove to the world that it has finally broken the duopoly that has dominated the Spanish La Liga for much too long. Barca knows this a match that requires the best it can give to prove that is still among, if not, the greatest and is in with a chance of winning three major trophies again this season.

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My Christmas Carol

 

a.       Verse One Just now I watched my football team FC Barcelona finish off their year playing a beautiful game of football-poetic in its creation, selfless in its delivery. The team played without their two non-Spanish superstars-Messi and Neymar- and yet had Pedro (born in the Canaries) and Cesc (a Catalan) scoring some sublime goals, and Jordi Alba (a Catalan) and Iniesta (a Castilian) in perfect harmony down the left-hand side and in the middle. Barca’s manager, Tata Martino likes to rotate his players (several of them Spanish internationals) so as not to exhaust them. This must please Vicente Del Bosque, the manager of the Spanish national squad –La Roja-as much as having the divisive Jose Mourinho no longer manager of Real Madrid, as he prepares to defend his team’s Crown at next summer’s World Cup tournament in Brazil.

b.      Verse Two With Catalan nationalists announcing plans for a referendum on independence , and the Madrid government insisting such an act would be unconstitutional, Spain looks set to become one of next year’s  big political stories, and only Spaniards and Catalans will come out losing if both sides refuse to back off.  If only Spanish politics could be like La Roja, and learn there is such a thing as the common good, from Barca and Vicente Del Bosque.

c.       Verse Three A friend of mine is trying to hold his family life together having lost his job. Three other friends have been treated for cancer in recent months. The determination of all four to look on the brighter side and believe things will get better has shown them at their most human and heroic. I feel humbled by their majesty of spirit.

d.      Verse Four In my Catholic church today we prayed for peace, reconciliation, and end to suffering in the Middle East. I thank God for sending us Pope Francis.

e.      Verse Five What happens now it’s Christmas? We send nice emails to each other, we modify our tweets, we exchange presents, we gather as family or as friends, and think of or try and reach out to those who are without either. We don’t feel like fighting. We try and forgive. We pause. We hope. We look up at the stars at night, and some of us remember just why Christmas exists at all, thanks to a child born in a manger.

        Verse Six   A fraternal abrazo to you all .

 

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Neymar’s night at the Nou Camp

 

Celtic dismally failed to live up to their brave heart image last night, but their gutless performance at the Nou Camp should not detract from the fact that this was a FC Barcelona victory worthy of note.

Above all,  this will be remembered as the match in which Neymar showed what he is capable of as a playmaker, on and off the ball, assisting, delivering, and scoring goals-his Champion’s League drought transformed into a flowing hat rick.

And to have Neymar showing his true talent, and visibly enjoying himself, is a potentially huge morale booster to Barca that has been struggling to come to t terms with the post-Guardiola era. It remains to be seen whether the young Brazilian’s growing stardom clashes with or complements. Messi’s(once the Argentinian recovers from his injury).

We shall also have to wait and see whether Tata Martino’s rotations and tactical shifts are an effective method capable of success against stronger, more skilled teams, as Barca enters the more demanding stages of the Champions League.

Such was Barca’s dominance last night that Neymar and Pedro could permit themselves a hug and a smile after colliding , like a bunch of overzealous  schoolboys with each other and squandering a clear goal scoring opportunity. But the fact remains that while Barca managed its 6-1 victory against weak opposition it still seems to be lacking the coalescing sense of identity that was previously rooted in a commanding midfield.

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La mal imagen de Argentina

 

El ejemplo de Nelson Mandela, y también del Papa Francisco (un argentino) nos recuerda que  el liderazgo, el compromiso, la misericordia y reconciliación, son los pilares de una política humana y capaz de transformación.  

Algo de esto se vivió en Argentina en Diciembre de 1983 al asumir la presidencia Raúl Alfonsín, un político social demócrata de talla Europea que supo en su mejor momento romper las divisiones tribales y clasistas de un país, para después dejar desperdiciar lo conseguido, atrapado por lo peor de su pais.

De los momentos históricos que he vivido como periodista, pocos estuvo  tan lleno de un ambiente tan esperanzador como el que comparti  en las calles céntricas de Buenos Aires el día que asumió el poder Alfonsín, un presidente civil democráticamente  elegido que nada  mas asumir, tuvo el coraje de llevar  a juicio los juntas militares  que tanta represión habían traído.

Treinta años más tarde, una huelga policial ha desencadenado disturbios, saqueos, y hasta muertos en varias zonas del país. Que la reacción del gobierno Peronista de Cristina Fernández haya sido la movilización de una fuerza paramilitar refleja hasta qué punto la sociedad Argentina ha perdido un sentido cívico, aceptando que su sobrevivencia y su destino depende de los uniformados, y que el bien común  se sacrifique a la anarquía, por un lado, y la represión por otra, en vez de asociarse con  una responsabilidad  colectiva que asume la ciudadanía como el sine qua non de su democracia.

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