{"id":76718,"date":"2026-08-27T16:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T16:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/76718\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T16:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T16:40:10","slug":"barcelona-scraps-tribute-to-spain-world-cup-winners-act-supporting-catalan-symbol-is-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/76718\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona scraps tribute to Spain World Cup winners. Act supporting Catalan symbol is expected"},"content":{"rendered":"

BARCELONA \u2013 Barcelona’s World Cup winners<\/a> with Spain will not be honored by the club at its first home game of the season on Thursday because of an incident involving the \u201cestelada\u201d flag, Catalonia’s pro-independence<\/a> symbol.<\/p>\n

Instead, an act supporting the estelada organized by a local group was expected to take place at Camp Nou stadium, with some 10,000 flags given to fans.<\/p>\n

Barcelona has eight World Cup champions in its squad, the most of any club, and it planned a tribute to them before its Spanish league home opener against Athletic Bilbao.<\/p>\n

Other Spanish clubs, in partnership with the Spanish soccer federation, had honored their own World Cup champions in tributes that included the displaying of the World Cup trophy and the presence of Spain coach Luis de la Fuente.<\/p>\n

Barcelona said it didn’t intend to go ahead with the tribute after one of its fans had an estelada flag taken away from him by police before the team’s game at Elche last weekend. The young fan confronted the officers, who hit him with batons before detaining him.<\/p>\n

The Catalan club said it regretted the confiscation of the flags from its fans, saying the estelada “is a legally endorsed symbol and its display constitutes a legitimate exercise of freedom of expression.” It said \u201cit cannot in itself be considered an incitement to hatred or violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barcelona said it considered the \u201cprocedure used to detain one of our fans was disproportionate and that the use of force lacked the necessary justification and appropriateness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident quickly escalated to the political sphere, with local politicians expressing their opinions.<\/p>\n

A Catalan organization was planning to hand out 10,000 estelada flags outside the Camp Nou before Thursday’s game. Barcelona club president Joan Laporta highlighted the peaceful \u201cact of exaltation of the estelada,\u201d which he said represented the Catalans’ right to freedom of expression. Barcelona was not directly organizing the event.<\/p>\n

Laporta said it was not \u201cthe most appropriate moment\u201d to offer the tribute to the Spain players, adding that \u201csoccer must unite, not generate confrontations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laporta said the Spanish soccer federation understood the club’s position.<\/p>\n

The eight Barcelona players who helped Spain win its second World Cup trophy last month are Joan Garc\u00eda, Eric Garc\u00eda, Pedri, Pau Cubars\u00ed, Gavi, Rodri, Dani Olmo and Lamine Yamal.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

\nSee AP\u2019s full soccer coverage here<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BARCELONA \u2013 Barcelona’s World Cup winners with Spain will not be honored by the club at its first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[939,927,728,721,1025,664,14716,17,396],"class_list":["post-76718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-dani-olmo","tag-eric-garcia","tag-gavi","tag-joan-garcia","tag-joan-laporta","tag-pedri","tag-rodrigo-hernandez","tag-spain","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}