Llagostera paying heavy price for Barcelona employee’s racist act

Outrage and punishment from incident threaten to overshadow tiny club's dramatic rise, writes Andy Mitten

Racing Santander players stand in a line and refuse to play at the start of their King's Cup quarter-final second leg against Real Sociedad in Santander, northern Spain, January 30, 2014. The King's CShow more

The shocking images of a middle-aged woman, pretending to be a gorilla in front of a black footballer, quickly went viral. The setting was a Spanish third division play-off game between Llagostera and Racing Santander in May.

Her insulting primate impersonation was bad enough, but she was surrounded by children when she rose from her seat to racially abuse Racing striker Mamadou Kone.

The culprit was identified by the club and reported to the police after the game. She was banned from the stadium for life, but the damage to Llagostera’s reputation was done.

With racism rightly a hot topic in Spain, the incident came weeks after Barcelona's Daniel Alves had a banana thrown at him during a game at Villarreal.

The woman in Llagostera, a town 90 kilometres north of Barcelona, was an employee of Barcelona, working in their club museum as a ticket seller. The club sacked her immediately.

Kone, an Ivorian striker, later took to Twitter: “Regarding this ‘lady’, it is better not to say anything ... She has shown herself.”

So, instead of drawing acclaim as a remarkable football story from a town of just 8,000 residents, a club who managed to secure promotion to Spain’s second division, making them the smallest ever to reach such heights, they became associated with the actions of a solitary racist whom nobody had previously seen at any of their games.

It made everyone in Llagostera, a sleepy town in northern Catalonia set against the backdrop of the Pyrenees, uncomfortable.

They had seen their local team, with an annual budget of €400,000 (Dh1.9m), one of the smallest in Spain’s regional third division, top the table and win promotion.

Llagostera’s rise is a great achievement. They spent much of their history playing teams from neighbouring villages, but in 2003, they began to climb the league ladder. And they did not stop.

By 2009, after four promotions in six years, they had reached Spain’s fourth tier and their rivals came from cities.

“There was no grand plan and people kept saying we couldn’t go any higher, but we just kept on going up,” said club president Isabel Tarrago, who is married to technical director Oriol Alsina. The couple work in textiles and live in Llagostera. Some of the club’s funding comes from their company.

Their council-owned ground was woefully undeveloped, with one small grandstand offering cover for 200 fans by the side of the pitch, not even enough to shelter their average crowds of 300.

In 2011, they went up again and played in Segunda B, where they stayed for three seasons, surviving on average crowds of 400.

“The club is run entirely by volunteers,” Tarrago said. “They work very hard to bring money in.”

A game against Valencia in 2012 helped finances, and some of the temporary seats installed were used until last season. Only after another promotion in May to a league where they will play against Real Betis, Zaragoza and Mallorca did the club have to leave their home, with its tiny, temporary stands and artificial turf.

They had no choice – Spain’s football federation insists that second-division clubs play on natural grass. Playing in a stadium also helps, so Llagostera had to leave town to share an 8,000-seat venue with former rivals Palamos.

Palamos, 27 kilometres east of Llagostera, sits on Costa Brava’s Mediterranean coast and will be packed with tourists on Sunday when Llagostera play their first home game in the second division against Leganes, but none of them will be able to enter the stadium.

Following the racist incident in May, the federation ordered the game to be played behind closed doors as punishment.

Thus, the club’s first match at a level they worked so hard to reach will take place in front of empty stands. Fans must wait two more weeks before they can watch their team in person. The club feel the ruling is heavy-handed.

“From the first moment, we worked hard to reduce this sanction,” the club said. “We had an immaculate record until the incident.”

The appeal fell on death ears, with the league stating: “The facts are very serious and the sanction cannot be reduced”.

Llagostera feel they are being punished for the actions of an individual who quite possibly had never before attended one of their games. The league, in turn, reinforced the message that racism will not be tolerated.

As a result, Llagostera will play in front of a handful of people, like they did before their meteoric rise.

Except that now, the witnesses will be officials and media, rather than those who deserve to see their moment in the sun.

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