A former FC Barcelona star has been accused of being anti-Catalan, or rather ‘Catalanophobic,’ by local newspaper El Nacional.
Emmanuel Petit spent three successful seasons at Arsenal, which saw him win a 1997/1998 Premier League and FA Cup double in north London ahead of the World Cup and Euros with France.
In the year of that latter conquest, 2000, he headed south to Barca with Gunners colleague Marc Overmars as the pair joined the Catalans in a double transfer deal.
Petit cost £7 million to land, which was far cheaper than Overmars’ £25 million price tag. Yet while the Dutchman’s time at Camp Nou was plagued with injuries, Petit also encountered struggles to settle.
Moved into defence, he suffered his own bout of niggling injuries and was moved on to Chelsea after just one term with only a single goal to his name.
In a 2008 autobiography, Petit attacked Lorenzo Serra Ferrer for not knowing his position when he joined the Blaugrana, but there were further criticisms of the club’s culture on the whole.
In a chapter entitled ‘Barcelona, to my misfortune’, Petit wrote how he was ignored when he first joined the club with many not even greeting him.
The Barca locker room was split into three clans of Catalans, Dutch, and “the rest” he said, which was “goodbye to unity”.
“As soon as I arrived at Barcelona people told me: ‘don’t try to learn Spanish, you have to learn Catalan’. And I said to them: ‘I’m in Spain, right?’ And they would reply: ‘No. You’re in Catalonia.’,” Petit explained.
“I understand that they identified with that, but that is very close to racism. We are talking about football, not politics or religion. I didn’t like the situation in the dressing room at all and then this constant way of forcing me to speak in Catalan … although I know that for sure it will make the Catalans jump, Barcelona is still in Spain and I didn’t really understand it,” Petit added.
Though the book was released in 2008, El Nacional has published the extract this week and called Petit “a Barca midfielder [who] vomits against Catalonia in his autobiography and accuses the Catalans of being racists for speaking Catalan”.
Its report has been picked up by many outlets across Spain, with the sensitive topic of Catalan culture, language and identity always likely to attract interest.
FC Barcelona is proud of its Catalan identity
Known for being “more than a club”, FC Barcelona is proud of its Catalan identity. This can be seen by its use of Catalan in Camp Nou or its temporary home Montjuic, the inclusion of the Senyera flag on its shirts, and the celebration of typical Catalan holidays such as Saint Jordi, or Saint George’s Day.