Barca show their true colours

apoch632

gimmick wrote: »

^ Seriously, this thread is brutal. I would have expected an awful lot better from most. Some not so. The reason I did not engage in the "argument", is because its facking stupid.

Far as I can see, the problem is that a big club have taken a big sponsorship deal. Would folk be whinging as much if Manyoo or Liverpool or whoever did it? No. And if anyone brings up the "Mes Que" argument again....................

The Mes Que criticisim is quite valid imo.

Before it was something that was just said about Barca. But in recent years they have started marketing themselves with it. Its only in recent years they have started selling t-shirts with "Mes Que..." on it, putting it into the seats of the Camp Nou, putting it onto the shirts. Its become a mixture of a marketing gimmick http://shop.fcbarcelona.com/stores/barcelona/products/product_browse.aspx?cid=16403 and something that they use to lord it over others with.

If you try to hold yourself up as being better and above other clubs when you do something that doesn't fit in with that. (Sponsorship deals with Qatar are questionable imo) Its gonna draw a lot of criticism and quite rightly so.

and I say this as someone who has a great respect for what Barca has stood for over the years

Pro. F

gimmick wrote: »

^ Seriously, this thread is brutal. I would have expected an awful lot better from most. Some not so. The reason I did not engage in the "argument", is because its facking stupid.

Far as I can see, the problem is that a big club have taken a big sponsorship deal. Would folk be whinging as much if Manyoo or Liverpool or whoever did it? No. And if anyone brings up the "Mes Que" argument again....................

No that is not the problem.

gimmick

Ok

Bodhisopha

Current business dealings don't suddenly undo the meaning of a club motto that has been used for decades. What that motto means to fans of Barcelona, moreso Catalans goes far beyond a marketing slogan.

Of course it has been hijacked for PR reasons but that's just marketing, it doesn't undo the history of the club and what it means to its fans and if you think it does, then the motto never meant that much to you in the first place. Which is fine.

Mes que un marketing slogan.

dfx-

MOG7 wrote: »

Zubizarreta, Laudrup, Nadal (?), Stoichkov, Bakero, Ferrer, Koeman...early 90s

el rabitos

perhaps barca have just been giving everyone else a head start for the past century, now the gloves are off :pac:

Sir Gallagher

gimmick wrote: »

I would love to do a great post like Ezes, I would also love to say what I really wish, but I will settle on this



What a shít thread with some of the worst posts I have ever come across.

Pro. F wrote: »

Yeah that really engaged with the argument there, well done.

Here's my response:

Your post is shít.

The argument has been engaged fully and negated, now everybody is just having a jolly at the bitterness.

iregk

I have to ask the question though and yes it is off topic somewhat. Why the sudden hatred of Barca? I'm not a fan of them however I do enjoy sitting down and watching their spectacular brand of football. Easily the best, easiest on the eye in world football.

Why do people who claim to be football fans hate the club? As people have said the hatred has increased 10 fold since the mascre of madrid. Whats the problem?

reprazant

All the people moaning about Barcelona being sponsored by a Quatari charity, I presume you all feel as equally repugnant about Arsenal having their shirt AND stadium sponsored by a state company of Dubai?

I don't remember there being a thread on that when the deal was signed or since for that matter.

Pro. F

Sir Gallagher wrote: »

The argument has been engaged fully and negated, now everybody is just having a jolly at the bitterness.

No it hasn't.

Bodhisopha brought up a good point about UNICEF withdrawing their logo if they're unhappy but other than that most posters have just ignored the arguments or repeated the same stuff that's already been shown to be wrong.

This talk of bitterness is nonsense. I like Barca a lot, but that doesn't mean I can't criticise something that looks like hypocrisy.

reprazant wrote: »

All the people moaning about Barcelona being sponsored by a Quatari charity, I presume you all feel as equally repugnant about Arsenal having their shirt AND stadium sponsored by a state company of Dubai?

I don't remember there being a thread on that when the deal was signed or since for that matter.

There is a lot of stuff around that I don't like. If you want to start a thread about some morally dubious sponsors of some team I'll be interested. The interesting thing in this case, and it's an obvious difference if you manage to think about it for a second, is the hypocrisy of promoting UNICEF and Qatar at the same time on the same shirt. I would guess that the majority of big clubs do charity work while also having harmful organisations sponsoring them. It's still worth looking at Barca when it is being done so blatantly.

iregk wrote: »

I have to ask the question though and yes it is off topic somewhat. Why the sudden hatred of Barca? I'm not a fan of them however I do enjoy sitting down and watching their spectacular brand of football. Easily the best, easiest on the eye in world football.

Why do people who claim to be football fans hate the club? As people have said the hatred has increased 10 fold since the mascre of madrid. Whats the problem?

The supposed hatred of Barca is well over exaggerated. I, for one, like Barca and like seeing them beat Real. So you might want to re-assess your 10 fold increase in hatred that you think you've observed.

I was going to respond to this thread, but I thought better of it, and eZe^ said pretty much everything that needs to be said anyway. So I'll leave my contribution to this:

Warper

Pro. F wrote: »

No it hasn't.

Bodhisopha brought up a good point about UNICEF withdrawing their logo if they're unhappy but other than that most posters have just ignored the arguments or repeated the same stuff that's already been shown to be wrong.

This talk of bitterness is nonsense. I like Barca a lot, but that doesn't mean I can't criticise something that looks like hypocrisy.


There is a lot of stuff around that I don't like. If you want to start a thread about some morally dubious sponsors of some team I'll be interested. The interesting thing in this case, and it's an obvious difference if you manage to think about it for a second, is the hypocrisy of promoting UNICEF and Qatar at the same time on the same shirt. I would guess that the majority of big clubs do charity work while also having harmful organisations sponsoring them. It's still worth looking at Barca when it is being done so blatantly.



The supposed hatred of Barca is well over exaggerated. I, for one, like Barca and like seeing them beat Real. So you might want to re-assess your 10 fold increase in hatred that you think you've observed.

Please tell me what harmful acts the Qatar Foundation has done. Last I read it was a non-profit organisation promoting education etc.

Pro. F

Warper wrote: »

Please tell me what harmful acts the Qatar Foundation has done. Last I read it was a non-profit organisation promoting education etc.

Read the thread, just read a few posts back. That argument has been addressed.

Deleted User wrote: »

I was going to respond to this thread, but I thought better of it, and eZe^ said pretty much everything that needs to be said anyway. So I'll leave my contribution to this:

Yeah well done. Another shíte contribution from a poster who can't actually carry on the discussion.

Warper

Pro. F wrote: »

Read the thread, just read a few posts back. That argument has been addressed.



Yeah well done. Another shíte contribution from a poster who can't actually carry on the discussion.

The Qatari Foundation was set up by, and is run and funded by, the Royal family. If Qatar really wants to do some good then they should stop doing harm first. The foundation is just a vehicle for promoting Qatar in a good light and it seems most of the work it actually does is for the benefit of Qatari nationals (it's the none nationals that suffer in Qatar because of the states' turning a blind eye to trafficking).

Is this what you call addressing the matter? It sounds like conjecture to me.

lordgoat

Jesus Pro-F get out your spoon cos you're going to need it to feed some of these.

Have a look around on the internet the facts are there and it's pretty easy to find the links between Qatari govvernment and the charty(ies) it runs.

Pro. F

Pro. F wrote: »

Yeah well done. Another shíte contribution from a poster who can't actually carry on the discussion.

The point. You missed it.

THAT'S BECAUSE THERE'S NOTHING TO CARRY ON. All you have to do is look at the sheer volume of people who have decided that "Mes que un club" is some kind of pretentious slogan to be translated to mean "We're better than you".

I have a rule, never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. As such, I'm not going to get into a row about it as most people seem to have ignored eZe^'s contribution and continued to bask in ignorance.

invinciblePRSTV

eZe^ wrote: »

Firstly, people thinking Barca are 'more than a club' because of how they try to conduct themselves on and off the pitch are just misinformed. Barcelona are 'mes que un club' because during the fascist movement in Spain, the Catalan people were banned from displaying any ideals of the Catalan culture. The language was banned, and people were at times shot for speaking Catalan in the streets.

The Camp Nou was the only place in Catalunya where it was safe for Catalan's to congregate and practice their beliefs. For that reason the club was seem as the only real symbol of the Catalan people during Franco's regime. That's the reason why it's seen as 'more than a club'. It's nothing to do with Barca having delusions of grandeur and thinking they are the only pure angels in a sport that has become commercialised. If sky or any other outlet speak about the 'mes que un club' as anything other than what I wrote above then they are hugely misinformed.

With all this in mind, and considering Catalunya's historically difficult relationship with the concept of the Spanish state, the royal family which presides over it and the absolutist rule which both of these elements imposed on Catalunya in decades and centuries gone by. Then surely it must stick in the craw of at least some of the more politically aware members of Barcelona (the football club) supporters that a royal family, who rule a state in an absolutist manner, now sponsor the primary club in a region which you would consider to embody the kind of ideals that the Qatari Royal family definitely do not hold.

eZe^ wrote: »

Secondly, looking at the sponsorship deal as objectively as possible, I'm feeling very mixed. It would be naive for me to think that in the modern game where Barca are hundreds of millions of euro in debt that they can continue without one. So it's good that at least there is another financial outlet to help the club financially. The club is heavily sponsored as it is, you only have to go to the Camp Nou to see how much we have been from the likes of herbalife, audi, and estrella damm. It's just the nature of the sport right now. I just hope for the life of me that the Qatar money isn't from some dodgy source, they hardly have a sparkling liberalism and altruistic reputation.

The Qatari money comes from a state which has a royal family which essentially controls all aspects of civil, political & commercial activity within their country. This is more characteristic of banana republics, and isn't the same as accepting sponsorship monies from companies which operate under the normal, well regulated, guise of commercial enterprises within western society.

Every penny the Qatar foundation gives Barca, just like the Sheikhs money given to Man City, is a penny which belongs to and should be spent by the actual citizens of those countries.

eZe^ wrote: »

Obviously I'm very proud of the club with the unicef deal. It's not just an advertising deal, they also donate large sums of money to the organisation every year. This deal also remains in place despite taking up the Qatar sponsorship. So it's hardly like they are dropping unicef on their ass while they money grab. Also, how dare some of you villify a team for donating to charity. At the end of the day, who gives a sh*t what the clubs intentions are when donating money to charity, the money is still going to help save lives, it's not like a euro from a crook is worth less than a euro from a saint. Serious moral high horses among some of yous.

Bit of a strawman really, we give some of the money to kids, but we take money from a country ran as a fiefdom and personal piggy bank.

Ask yourself this, if the Qatari people were actually allowed to have a say in where their petro dollars go, do y'think they'd really like it if was spent to sponsor some sports team in a different continent?.

eZe^ wrote: »

tl;dr version - Barca are super dooper good at footballz.

I too enjoy their purty football.

Pro. F

Warper wrote: »

Is this what you call addressing the matter? It sounds like conjecture to me.

Well I went and did a fair bit of research to inform myself. I read through the Foundation's own website and some of their sub-websites, read what Amnesty International had to say about the place. Went and found the US State Department's latest report on people trafficking and what it had to say about Qatar. Then read around to find out how reliable the State Department's report is viewed.

So the Qatari Foundation: a state organisation that mostly improves education and science for the benefit of Qatari citizens - eh like a part of their welfare state then (woop-di-doo, go charity). As I said it's the non nationals that really suffer in that country. The only evidence of actual real overseas charitable work that I've been able to find is the Reach Out to Asia program, which so far has raised a grand total of US$35m. So that would cover the Barca sponsorship deal for about a year then.

This charity is set up and run by the Qatari state. A state that abuses human rights*. Which is currently on a massive publicity drive. This charity's work mostly benefits Qatari citizens and this charity is spending €30m a year to promote itself. The evidence that this so called charity is actually just a national investment funnel and promotion tool for Qatar seems pretty clear to me.

If you've got any evidence or argument to the contrary I would be interested, it takes all different opinions and sources to get closer to the truth. But to try to just dismiss it all out of hand is weak.

(*I just want to point out that I'm not saying Qatar should be completely written off. They've done some work to improve their record, but they've got a way to go yet.)

Deleted User wrote: »

The point. You missed it.

THAT'S BECAUSE THERE'S NOTHING TO CARRY ON. All you have to do is look at the sheer volume of people who have decided that "Mes que un club" is some kind of pretentious slogan to be translated to mean "We're better than you".

I have a rule, never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. As such, I'm not going to get into a row about it as most people seem to have ignored eZe^'s contribution and continued to bask in ignorance.

There's more going on in this discussion than the ''mes que un club'' argument. You've just chosen to ignore the rest. The ''most people'' general sweeping bollocks is very convenient for you I'm sure, but it just shows that you are not actually interested in discussing the topic at all.

Edit: I didn't even think of invinsiblePRSTV's point about the conflict between Barca's ideals and Qatar's general carry on. Interesting.

bruschi

Pro. F wrote: »

(*I just want to point out that I'm not saying Qatar should be completely written off. They've done some work to improve their record, but they've got a way to go yet.)

would part of the way to go include forming an organisation that promotes education and integrating themselves more with the western world? I wonder how they could promote such activities on a global scale to try improve things in their country?

OhNoYouDidn't

You would swear Spain is a paragon of human rights from the way some are talking here.

They ran death squads against their own civilians even after they joined the EU ffs.

Pro. F

bruschi wrote: »

would part of the way to go include forming an organisation that promotes education and integrating themselves more with the western world? I wonder how they could promote such activities on a global scale to try improve things in their country?

The way to go is for the Qatari state to stop abusing human rights. This foundation does nothing to that end.

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

You would swear Spain is a paragon of human rights from the way some are talking here.

They ran death squads against their own civilians even after they joined the EU ffs.

1. That's in the past.
2. Barca would have opposed all that surely.

LuckyLloyd

This debate thus far is basically boiling down to one side making points and asking interesting questions; and the other sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "I CAN'T HEAR YOU" as loud as they can.

Cool.

Zebra3

Pro. F wrote: »

Went and found the US State Department's latest report

Yeah, cos the Americans have the right to judge others on human rights.... :rolleyes:

OhNoYouDidn't

Pro. F wrote: »

1. That's in the past.
2. Barca would have opposed all that surely.

1: As may be, but its still a crime to 'refuse to condemn terrorism' and terrorism has a very wide definition. Thought crime in other words.

2: Maybe they did, who knows, but thats not the point. EVERY country has something that we can point at, saying that a charity that is part run by the local royals is complicit in human rights violations is iffy. Its like saying that Shamrock Rovers shouldn't support the Red Cross because its run by the Minister for Defence in an Irish state that Amnesty accuse of discriminating against Travellers.

flahavaj

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

This debate thus far is basically boiling down to one side making points and asking interesting questions; and the other sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "I CAN'T HEAR YOU" as loud as they can.

Cool.

Some Barca fans take this appproach a bit too often for my liking.

Pro. F

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

1: As may be, but its still a crime to 'refuse to condemn terrorism' and terrorism has a very wide definition. Thought crime in other words.

Spain and Qatar are miles apart in terms of civil rights like that. And if they weren't, so what? If you can point to some additional hypocrisy then fire away, it doesn't diminish this particular one.

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

2: Maybe they did, who knows, but thats not the point. EVERY country has something that we can point at, saying that a charity that is part run by the local royals is complicit in human rights violations is iffy.

Of course it's the point. If some country was a totalitarian and abusive state and an organisation within that country (Barca in this case) opposed that, then it's ridiculous to charge the organisation with the crimes of the state they were opposing. Seriously, how retarded is that?!

The Qatari foundation isn't part run by the royals. It's wholly run by them. It is a part of the Qatari state. That's what all the evidence I've found shows. If you've got any proof otherwise then let's see it.

A so called charity, set up and run by the powers in a totalitarian state, which actually functions as an arm of that state's welfare system and people are saying it is an independent charity? Come off it! People need to show some cop on here.

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

Its like saying that Shamrock Rovers shouldn't support the Red Cross because its run by the Minister for Defence in an Irish state that Amnesty accuse of discriminating against Travellers.

No it's nothing like that. Ireland is Tier 1 in the latest report on human trafficking, Qatar is Tier 2 Watch-list, so worlds apart.

And, in your comparison, you are ignoring the fact that Barca aren't supporting the Qatar Foundation, it's the other way round. The Qatar Foundation is paying Barca €30m a year for promotion.

Zebra3 wrote: »

Yeah, cos the Americans have the right to judge others on human rights.... :rolleyes:

Whether the Americans have the right to judge others doesn't take away from the usefulness of this report. As I said, I read up to see if the report can be trusted. It is a respected authority.

.......................................
I'm still open to correction on any information that I have that may be wrong. I'm no expert and maybe I've missed something.

lordgoat

Mother of god it's like trying to have a discussion with children. Thanks for the info Pro, i wasn't half aware of all that.

Also cracking reply to eze's post again informative and to the actual point. No one is disputing the fact that barca are not a great football team. In this particular scenario i think it goes beyond the game though.

dfx-

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

This debate thus far is basically boiling down to one side making points and asking interesting questions; and the other sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "I CAN'T HEAR YOU" as loud as they can.

Cool.

The bit in bold depends on your point of view. The guts of the thread is not making interesting points but digging at Barcelona from a preset opinion, right from the nature of the title. It's only missing a Messi or Ronaldo argument.

mormank

smokedeels wrote: »

It's interesting if you compare football to athletics and the Olympic Project for Human Rights in the 60's, I'd love to see a similar movement in football, I'd be proud if, for instance, Ireland qualified for the 2022 world cup and the team refused to play in a country with such a poor record of human rights. I know a lot of people wouldn't, but I'd support action like that.

Maybe we could convine the national team to just play so badly that we dont qualify and then claim the higher ground anyway.....oh wait...

Interesting thought you put forward about the voluntarily exclusion of our nation...would divide the country's opinion even moreso than Saipan I reckon if they did that! :eek:

Warper

Who really gives a fcuk in all fairness. The main problem I have is that it is only €25m a year for 6 years. They should have gotten more as they are the No. 1 brand in World football and also the No. 1 team in World football. I know it is currently the highest yearly sponsorship figure but wont be in a few years time as other clubs have €20m a year sponsorship as it is. Bad marketing fella there, should have been at least €30m a year for the privilege of being Barca's first sponsor.