Why isn’t Barcelona hated like other big clubs?
Every big club is hated. Fans of English soccer hate Manchester United because of its domestic dominance over the last two decades, and because of its spoilt, oftentimes insufferable fanbase. Ditto for German fans and Bayern Munich. Real Madrid is rightly seen as arrogant by everyone who isn’t a Real […]

Every big club is hated. Fans of English soccer hate Manchester United because of its domestic dominance over the last two decades, and because of its spoilt, oftentimes insufferable fanbase. Ditto for German fans and Bayern Munich. Real Madrid is rightly seen as arrogant by everyone who isn’t a Real Madrid fan. Juventus? It’s hard to root for a club that bribed its way to a few scudetti. No one in their right mind would pick Chelsea for a second team. Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain are despised for similar reasons; the only thing worse than haughty old money is flashy new money.

One big club that seems to escape a lot of the ire of neutral fans, though, is Barcelona. Maybe it’s the club’s commitment to a wildly successful playing philosophy that many find easy on the eye. Maybe it’s the enviable record of promoting academy graduates. Maybe it’s the years spent as one of the few clubs in the major Europeans leagues without a shirt sponsor. Whatever the reason, Barcelona seems to have far less vitriol aimed in its direction that its rivals. But why? At a closer glance, Barcelona is just as deserving of our scorn as the rest.

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Let’s be honest here; half of Barcelona’s starting line-up is loathsome. Barça may have one of the most fearsome attacks in soccer history — Luis Suárez, Neymar, and Lionel Messi are each world class on their own, and together they’re damn near irresistible — but it’s also made up of two tax dodgers and an unapologetic racist. Sergio Busquets is hands down the best holding midfielder on the planet, and he’s also in most non-Cules list of “Footballers I’d Like to See Slapped.” Dani Alves may have redefined what it means to play the fullback position in the modern era, but he’s also a whiny, diving, snide bastard.

Is there a team that whines more than Barcelona? I suppose for a club that has been the most dominant in Europe over the last 10 years, it must be frustrating when things don’t go your way, hence the moaning to referees during the match, constant complaining about other teams’ tactics in the rare event of a loss, and even harping on about the grass being too long. Barcelona’s players bristle at the idea that there is more than one way to play the game, and they are invariably taken aback by some other team having the audacity to not allow them to play their brand of tiki-taka.

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The blaugrana also have a blatant disregard for the rules. Their famed academy system came under fire last year after FIFA found the club in serious breach of the rules regarding signing under-age players. Barcelona was hit with a year-long transfer ban, but they managed to partly get around that by somehow signing Aleix Vidal and Arda Turan anyway. Not satisfied with being able to sign players (but not register them) while banned, Barça even tried to appeal the ban to register Turan last month. You know the kid in your class who thinks he’s above the rules because he’s rich and his daddy is a lawyer? That’s Barcelona.

Més que un club. Barcelona’s historic slogan supposedly represents the idea that theirs is an institution that represents more than just football. It claims to be a symbol of democracy and social commitment, as described here from the club’s official website:

“Now in times of globalisation, Barça has extended its social commitment to the rest of the planet, with a specially significant event being the signing of an agreement with Unicef in 2006, which was a way of saying that a sports club should not be marginal to problems going on in society, in this case, the plight of children around the world.”

Presumably, those “problems going in society” don’t include the problems in Qatar — the country whose national airline is Barcelona’s current shirt sponsor — and the repeated allegations of human right abuses that it is currently facing. Qatar Airlines specifically has been accused of shocking treatment of female employees. One petition that calls for Barcelona to end the shirt sponsorship deal reports that “cabin crew are being exploited, imprisoned without charge, forcibly confined on company premises and automatically sacked if they become pregnant.” Social commitment, indeed. But in the words of one club official, “the money has to come from somewhere.”

None of this is to suggest that somehow Barcelona stand alone as the dark lords of modern club soccer. Elite club soccer today is a cynical enterprise. You would be hard pressed to find a big club that hasn’t tried to play above the rules, or failed to act on important social issues, or enabled unsavory behavior from players and coaches, or done questionable deals while chasing sponsorship dollars. They’re all guilty, and that’s exactly the point. Barcelona should be the bad guys, just like everybody else.

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