An Ordinary Lunch

The stadium audience is silent, as if thousands of people had suddenly ceased to exist; the voice of a local radio personality suddenly turns subdued, sad. The Valencian football team has been eliminated from the King’s Cup competition. They have no possibility of classifying for the European Cup, one less source of prestige and profit, an enormous disappointment that will not only have sporting consequences but also social ones.

The club that plays at Mestalla stadium was up for sale and perhaps this defeat will speed up the operation that various business groups are bidding on. How is it possible that there’s so much interest in a corporation that’s going bankrupt? Probably because the buyers are convinced that neither Bancam, nor the regional government, which had underwritten a debt of some four-hundred million euros (a government taking subsidiary liability for a football club in the midst of a recession) would let the FC València collapse. There would be too many political and social implications, even though those in power know that, after a certain amount of protest, society gives in and surrenders. But not in football, the only civil society that is functioning.