Barcelona supports Catalonia's push for independence

PanARMENIAN.Net - FC Barcelona still supports Catalonia's push to vote on secession from the rest of Spain despite warnings that independence would mean the club's exclusion from the Spanish league.

Barcelona ''was one of the first institutions to declare it was in favor of the right to decide,'' it said in a statement on Friday, Oct 10, according to FoxSports.

Catalonia's regional government wants to hold a nonbinding referendum on independence on Nov. 9. A Spanish court has suspended the vote to rule on its legality.

On Tuesday, the president of the Spanish football league, Javier Tebas, said Barcelona and the other football teams in the northeastern region would be excluded from Spanish competitions if Catalonia became a separate state.

Tebas said the country's sports law entitles only one non-Spanish territory - Andorra - to legally participate in the league or other official competitions. If Catalonia were to gain independence, the law would have to be altered to let Catalan clubs, including Espanyol and second-division teams Girona and Sabadell, back in.

Secessionist sentiment has surged in Catalonia in recent years during Spain's economic stagnation, and Barcelona's Camp Nou has become a focal point of the movement with pro-independence cheers a common feature during matches.

Barcelona defender Gerard Pique recently attended a massive rally in Barcelona clamoring for the Nov. 9 vote, and former coach Josep Guardiola is an independence supporter.

Polls show that while most of the 7.5 million residents of Catalonia support the vote, only around half favor ending centuries-old ties with the rest of Spain.